


Dragonfly

by SimplySupreme



Category: One Piece
Genre: Accidental Baby Acquisition, But They Love Each Other So It's Okay, Canon-Typical Violence, Everyone Has Issues, Franky is the Best, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Luffy Being Luffy, Mentions of Slavery, Past Child Abuse, Robin is the mom friend, Spandam is the Worst, Straw Hat family feels, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, Zoro takes care of everyone, and all the death that goes along with it, buster call, everyone cries, except the baby is 11, excessive child psychology, kiddo is working through her trauma okay?, no beta reader we die like men, oh look another ofc story, present child abuse too, this one has a lot of feelings
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-02
Updated: 2019-10-14
Packaged: 2020-11-15 04:55:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 52,223
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20860586
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SimplySupreme/pseuds/SimplySupreme
Summary: She swallowed. “In the past fifty years before Enies Lobby, there have been nine recorded Buster Calls, and two recorded survivors,” she whispered. “So if nobody else is alive to remember their names, I will.”...Spandam was always a little too enamored with the power of the Buster Call. When the Straw Hat Pirates storm Enies Lobby, they don't escape alone. Spandam had another prisoner, with a past that's a little too much like Robin's, and the longer she stays with them the less they want her to leave. Their new friend is an interesting person with interesting powers after all, even if she's a little young for a pirate.





	1. The Ghosts in Enies Lobby

She had only been the property of the World Government for less than a year, but already, sometimes she thought she’d forgotten how to feel things properly. She’d never forgotten _anything _since she’d eaten her devil fruit, but emotions weren’t like documents. There was more to them than words could adequately express, and ever since It Happened it was almost like she was missing an essential part of herself that had been left behind on the burning shores of Starcrest.

Slaves were killed if they cried, after all. Or if they were otherwise unable or unwilling to keep working. When she’d first been taken in for conditioning, she’d seen it happen. She’d seen slaves turn in their fellows, even, for committing these crimes where they should have been safely hidden from the eyes of their Masters. She knew she had _some _value by virtue of her skills, but certainly not enough to avoid the punishment for the violation of this basic rule. So she worked, and she didn’t cry. (Papa had asked her to live, after all, and she wouldn’t disobey him by dying so foolishly.)

At first, she thought that she should have wanted to cry all the time. She’d been too stunned to cry when It Happened though, and she’d been tied up with so much sea prism for the week after that in the brig of the Navy ship that she’d been too tired to cry even if she wanted to.

She’d been taught quickly after that. She still wore sea prism in her collar, but it was much less than before. (She needed to have the strength to work, after all.) Still, the emotions she remembered having all the time and moment to moment back then were just… gone. Held tightly in the smallest spark of feeling in her chest that she could muster, because no matter how much she did, there was _always _more work to do and nothing made it easier. Especially unruly emotions. She felt half-unconscious in a fog of physical pain and emotional numbness all the time now. Aside from the brief bursts of panic and adrenaline that occasionally kept her alive, she can’t remember the last time anything really _affected _her.

That said, she thought she might hate Spandam.

He hadn’t always been her Master. Her first Master had been Master Momousagi. She’d “saved” her from Starcrest when the other Vice Admirals would have let her die with the rest, because she’d been impressed by her abilities while she served as a translator and records keeper during her island’s negotiations with the World Government. Momousagi’s superiors must have agreed with her, because after that she’d been sent straight to one of the conditioning centers run by (or rather, for) the Celestial Dragons. She’d stayed there for a month before being returned to Master Momousagi. She hadn’t necessarily been a kind Master for the two months she’d stayed with her, but she hadn’t gone out of her way to be cruel either.

Not like Master Spandam. Master Momousagi had actually seemed regretful to give her over to the chief of CP9, but had explained that it had been determined that her talents were far more suited to covert operations than the day-to-day tasks of a Vice Admiral. With this in mind, she’d felt the smallest inkling hope at the time that things would get better for her under Master Spandam’s hand.

They had not.

Master Spandam was a cruel and vile person. He was all unchecked ambition without any other redeeming qualities to speak of, and without any desire whatsoever (nor ability, she sometimes thought bitterly to herself) to actually do his job properly. At least the other despicable Marine officers she’d met seemed to have _some _sort of moral compass and pride in their work, even if it was horribly skewed. So far as she could tell, Spandam wouldn’t realize an ethical principle if one suddenly materialized in front of him and punched him in the face. Worse, the man _detested _his own impotency, and when reminded of it (which was often) seemed to delight in exercising power over people that were weaker than himself.

People like her. She was an eleven-year-old, half-starved slave in a sea prism collar with absolutely no ability to defend herself from the man she was forced to call Master. Sometimes he would have an excuse for hurting her: like if she passed out from exhaustion, didn’t complete a task fast enough, or was unable to replicate a document because she “lost” (had never been given) it. Most of the time though, he didn’t even bother with the pretense. Why should he? Though the Navy itself didn’t (openly) practice slavery, CP9 was a _secret _unit. There was absolutely no one to call him to account for his actions.

(Or rather, there were. They just chose not to. What was she but the enslaved orphan child of an island of now-dead savages and traitors? At least like this, she’d been told more than once, she was _useful._)

So inasmuch as she could feel _anything _besides pain and numbness, she hated Spandam even more than she hated Admiral Akainu.

Which was why she was so nervous that he seemed so _happy_. She was constantly watchful of him out of sheer necessity. She often had very little warning of his moods swinging into violence, and gods help her if she didn’t anticipate one of his needs quickly enough. In the six months she’d spent here on Enies Lobby in Spandam’s service though, she’d never seen him so… so _gleeful._

It made her empty stomach cramp something fierce to contemplate just what would happen when the rest of CP9 arrived from Water 7. Anything that made Master Spandam so happy could only be a bad thing, so far as she was concerned. And she certainly wasn’t eager to meet more of CP9. (By and large, they seemed to think it was funny to torment her in various ways. She didn’t expect these new ones to be any different.) She’d been a nervous wreck about it for days –at least by her new standards—before she began to grasp the true horror of the situation. She jumped at every noise, and couldn’t stop her hands from shaking no matter what she did.

She’d been right to be afraid. She’d never –not once—been more tempted to cry since It Happened as she had when Master Spandam had so gleefully and carelessly shown her his golden transponder snail. She’d recoiled from the sight and Spandam had cackled at her. “Oh, so you _do _recognize this!” he exclaimed, wiggling the snail tauntingly above her head as she stared up at him from where she’d fallen backwards on the tile in horror. “You’re not as stupid as I thought you were then, runt. Do you remember what happened the last time you saw one?”

“Yes Master,” she choked out.

He seemed to puff up with pride at her answer. “Good,” he praised her (the first time he _ever _had) while mean-spiritedly stepping on two of her fingers and grinning maliciously. “Then you’ll remember how important I am to have been trusted with this.”

“Yes Master.”

Her job in Enies Lobby was far more sensitive than her job had been with her first Master. Master Momousagi had been more interested in her connection to Starcrest and their legendary martial artists than she had been in anything else; but she’d only been ten years old when It Happened, so the Marines never really expected her to know much. If they’d known the true extent of her training, they’d have been far more cautious with keeping her contained than they were now.

Of course, it wasn’t as if she was in any shape to escape regardless. Especially not from a fortress like Enies Lobby.

Master Spandam didn’t keep her for any sort of imagined martial prowess. (She’d been better than they could have imagined. She was small and so _very _light, but she’d been _good. _Trained by the best. Her Papa had been so proud… but she was too weak now to fight.) Instead, he kept her for her devil fruit.

She’d been quite young when she’d found it. Only four years old, and unable to understand why eating a strangely-colored cherry she’d found in the back yard was a _very _bad idea. The paper-paper fruit had turned her into a paper person, suddenly so light and able to fold herself into all sorts of interesting shapes, and to pull sheets of paper right off her skin like an old scab. (Needless to say, she’d become very good at origami very quickly, considering she could animate her new friends at will.) Perhaps the most valuable aspect of her powers, however, was her relationship with books. Paper was _her _territory, after all, as well as anything on it. She could read an entire book with a simple touch, and imprint it perfectly on her memory as she did so. (What else was she now, after all, except for a book with endless blank pages?) She could even create a copy of it later on if she wanted. Sans binding, of course. Without exaggeration, she’d absorbed and memorized every book on the island by the time she was six. Practically speaking, there was absolutely no better skill for someone in an intelligence agency to have access to.

Seeing as Master Spandam was a lazy incompetent, he made extensive use of her powers to keep track of all the information he was supposed to know but didn’t want to bother to retain himself. So much so that he wore the key to her collar around his wrist at all times, so that it was easy for him to briefly unfetter her powers for menial tasks while he threatened her with a lighter. (She, being made of paper, was quite flammable.) As a result, she’d acquired a vast amount of information on the operations of the Cipher Pol units to an extent that would have been extremely concerning to anyone else besides Spandam. He was far too sure of himself to ever consider a beaten-down slave girl such as herself as any type of security risk. (Not that she could blame him for his confidence. She was hardly capable of escape.)

Still, it was this pool of information –in addition to Master Spandam’s mindless bloviating—that told her something about what was really going on in Water 7 after he’d frightened her so badly with his ability to use It. There was very little information on the people named Cutty Flam and Nico Robin in the Enies Lobby records, and less still on Pluton and the ancient weapons. Still, it was enough for a quiet, traitorous part of her to whisper in her mind that _this _could be the only thing in the world that was even _worse _that It was. She almost couldn’t process the concept, but with the reportedly highly successful return of CP9 with their prisoners, it didn’t really seem to matter if she could process it or not. Seemingly, it would soon be her reality.

Which is why she nearly keeled over with relief and confusion when Master Spandam got a snail call that there was an intruder who’d made it past the first gate as she mopped up the hot coffee he’d spilled all across the desk and himself. She wasn’t sure what to make of this intruder, but she desperately hoped that they were capable of bringing Cutty Flam and Nico Robin far, _far _away from this man.

Straw Hat Luffy. She was familiar with the name. A big-name rookie out of the East Blue, of all places, and apparently the one who defeated the Warlord, Crocodile. (Though those particular records had been declared classified for the general public.) She could just bet that the Baskervilles downstairs were _salivating _to get their hands on him. He’d probably die here. Dodging a kick from Jabra as she scurried past with her wet rag so she could go fetch Master Spandam a fresh coffee, she hoped he’d be able to escape with his life. So far as she knew, he hadn’t been clocked for any actual major crimes outside of claiming to be a pirate and attacking a single Marine base in the East Blue.

“Four hundred casualties, sir.”

“You’re not making any sense!” Spandam screeched. “You’re telling me that _one _pirate has defeated four _hundred _of our guards?”

That was… that was good.

“No, wait. That number was incorrect.”

“Good. If we have casualties, at least report them correctly!”

“It looks like we’re now at five—URK!”

She almost couldn’t believe Master Spandam’s smug relief that Straw Hat had “only taken out five people”. Even standing here and peering silently out the window on a pretense of polishing off a spot on the glass, she could see the scramble of activity out in the city as hundreds of soldiers appeared to still be chasing someone. Straw Hat certainly hadn’t been stopped, and she was far more tempted to believe that the casualties numbered in the hundreds rather than in the single digits. Someone with this pirate’s reputation –rookie or not—wouldn’t have been captured by so few.

“Chief! Mr. Lucci’s party has arrived!” called the guard from outside. She scrambled to open the door before she could be punished for Master Spandam having to ask her, and bowed back into a shadowed corner as soon as she’d done so.

Master Spandam was quite boastful of Rob Lucci. She wanted as far away from such a man as she could safely manage.

None of the four newly-arrived members of CP9 spared her so much as a glance. If she weren’t entirely certain that fighters of their caliber had already clocked where every living person in the room was positioned the moment they stepped inside, she could have almost fooled herself into thinking that they hadn’t noticed her. As Lucci reported in to Master Spandam, she started moving again as quietly as she could (good slaves were seen and not heard) and went to prepare refreshments for the agents. She didn’t dare stand idle to stare at the new arrivals, but did manage to steal a few peeks at them through the limp brown strands of hair that had fallen into her face. Lucci, Kaku, Kalifa, and Blueno were exactly as the reports had described them, and quite intimidating in person. Not for their power (Her senses had been _obliterated _by her constant exposure to the sea prism, but she could tell by the way they held themselves that they held much more arrogance than awareness and she _knew _Fukauru was just spouting garbage –_power levels_, honestly.) but for the way they radiated killing intent.

CP9 was made up of entirely unpleasant people. They didn’t even like each _other. _Though to be fair, she considerably warmed to Kalifa after she called Master Spandam weak and got away with it. (Even if he reached around and smashed her face into the corner of his desk as soon as she got close enough, it was worth it.)

She was still scrubbing her own blood off the floor when Master Spandam called the prisoners in. None of the assembled agents of CP9 acknowledged the pair, who both seemed a little worse for wear, though Master Spandam immediately launched into his characteristic villainous gloating once he caught sight of Cutty Flam. She felt sorry that their friends hadn’t been able to get to them in time, but didn’t dare look up from her work.

She didn’t like this at all.

Of course, she only thought that until Cutty Flam –And what kind of creep wears only a speedo and a Hawaiian shirt anyways??—launched himself at Master Spandam and _bit his head. _(Forget Kalifa, _this _was the best thing she’d witnessed in ten months.)

It was telling that not a single member of CP9 moved a muscle from their padded armchairs to help him until explicitly ordered to; and even then, Kumadori still smacked the man clean across the room and into the ceiling while doing so. Though he’d sent Spandam flying with unerring accuracy in her direction so that she’d smashed her face into the desk again when she broke her Master’s fall.

Asshole. As if she didn’t have enough blood to clean up already.

Humiliated, Master Spandam heaved himself to his feet. “How dare you?” he growled. “I am the Chief of CP9!” He punctuated the declaration with a few swift kicks to her ribs as she lay limp at his feet.

Both Cutty Flam and Nico Robin gasped, horrified.

“Oi! Lay off the kid!” Cutty Flam shouted, somehow even angrier now than he had been before.

Master Spandam just smiled maliciously and kicked her again once more for good measure before moving in on the prisoner instead, eager to take out his anger on the man he’d apparently been holding a long-standing grudge against for years.

If she didn’t bother to put the snail receiver back in place after painfully picking herself back up? Well, that wasn’t anyone’s business but her own. None of the agents actually respected Master Spandam enough to call her out on this dereliction of duty. Cutty Flam was still on the floor getting kicked by Master Spandam (she could certainly sympathize with him on that). Nico Robin, on the other hand, was staring at her with… pain? Concern? She wasn’t quite sure, but having these two strangers react with something more than apathy towards her made her feel… well, she wasn’t sure. _Something_, at least. It was strange. Not a single person had ever expressed disagreement with how she was treated since It Happened. After all this time, she supposed she’d thought that the only decent people that existed on this planet had died the day of her capture.

But Cutty Flam had yelled at Master Spandam for kicking her, and Nico Robin was looking at her like she was about to cry.

She returned to scrubbing at the bloodstains with renewed vigor and tried to tune out her Master’s gloating about the assassination of the mayor of Water 7. Now wasn’t the time to start getting _sentimental _when these two were just going to be killed anyways. They couldn’t even help _themselves, _much less her.

But then… he started talking about It. About how Admiral Aokiji had given him the power to make It happen because Nico Robin was rumored to be headed to Water 7 and how now, _he _would have control of the ancient weapons and use them to force the entire world to answer to _his _sick whims and… her hands started trembling so badly she couldn’t hold the rag properly.

“I don’t understand,” Nico Robin finally spoke, her attention focused fully on the laughing madman standing before her with an expression that was once again calm and seemingly unruffled. “Why would Aokiji allow _you _to initiate the Buster Call?”

She couldn’t help but flinch violently at the mention of It. She flinched even harder when Master Spandam ran across the room and punched Nico Robin in the face so hard that she was thrown bodily off her feet and onto the ground, and cowered even though her Master’s yelling wasn’t directed at her.

“I’ll cleanse the world of Ohara’s legacy by bleeding you dry, Nico Robin.”

She knew firsthand how it felt to be on the receiving end of those words. Quite honestly, she preferred it when Master chose to use his fists. Bruises and broken bones would heal. There was nothing that could heal the wounds caused by being the last of a people, though. In this moment, she hoped that –however unlikely it was—that the World Government would be merciful enough to kill Nico Robin quickly.

“Now listen, and listen well,” Master Spandam continued. “From this moment on, I will make sure you experience pain so excruciatingly agonizing that you wake up every morning wishing you were dead. I’m going to hurt you, and use you, then throw you out into the sea! A life as sinful as yours deserves nothing less!”

(So no, there was little hope of mercy for this woman. She felt… she felt… _sad._)

It was almost too much for her to listen to Master Spandam threaten the Straw Hat pirates and gloat over Nico Robin’s foolishness in believing that he’d actually keep true to their deal. Still, she couldn’t help but think that Nico Robin was lucky to have found people who obviously cared so much for her that they’d go on a suicide mission like this one before they allowed her to sacrifice herself for them. It was tragic, but it was also _beautiful._

Then Master Spandam was kicking Cutty Flam and Nico Robin in their faces again, and she gave up any pretense of cleaning and curled up into a ball behind the desk, clutching her ears and biting her tongue so hard she tasted blood because after all this time… after all this time, she’d been so used to being alone, and it hurt more than she thought to watch this. She knew who Nico Robin was, and what had happened to Ohara. They were the _same. _The fact that they were now here together –both under the boots of Master Spandam—was the kind of dark irony that made her seriously consider crying despite the consequences.

For a moment, after it all stopped, there was silence. Then…

“You coward.” Nico Robin’s voice was soft and disdainful, and she shook with fear at the words even if she was suddenly filled with admiration for the woman brave enough to speak them.

Shockingly enough, Master Spandam didn’t really rise to the bait. So far as she could hear, he simply promised them an eventual gruesome death (and an equally gruesome death for their friends) before ordering them away for the moment. It was strangely relieving, and she forced her unsteady limbs back into action so she could scurry back to her place before her Master took notice that she’d stopped working.

She wasn’t sure if Cutty Flam’s second biting attack on Master Spandam’s head was _meant _to provide her the perfect cover, but that was certainly the result; and she was able to quickly scrub out the lasts specks of blood and scuttle back into the far corner where she’d stored most of her cleaning supplies for the day without notice or punishment before the guards managed to pry him free. Both prisoners were escorted from the room, which left her alone with her Master, Funkfreed, and the assembled agents of CP9. Wearing her collar, she was too weakened to properly hide herself as she’d been taught by the Island Guard on Starcrest. Still, she made every effort to keep herself small and unnoticeable as they left the room in seeming disgust of their pitiful commander. She was extremely grateful that not a one made to acknowledge her presence in the least, though perhaps less so when her Master called them back and presented a pair of devil fruits to Kaku and Kalifa.

She slipped out of the room before they could eat them, lugging stupid Funkfreed’s empty bowl with her. She had absolutely no desire to watch, and even the mere thought brought back the memory of the foul flavor of her own fruit that she could still almost taste lingering on her tongue even years later.

Her sea prism collar sat cold and unyielding on her throat, and she spitefully hoped that they would all one day know its bite as intimately as she did.

The two prisoners were chained to the wall just outside Master Spandam’s office, under close guard from a pair of Marines. She very deliberately didn’t look as them as she passed into the kitchen to retrieve more fruit for the elephant-sword. Looking at the food she held so close to her but was unable to eat –she’d stolen an orange _once _and wasn’t keen to experience the consequences of crossing Cook-san a second time—was harder than looking at the prisoners though, so she couldn’t help but let her eyes fall onto them when she returned.

They were watching her.

“Are you alright?” Nico Robin asked her quietly.

She froze in her tracks, baffled, and stared at them with wide eyes. Nico Robin wanted to know if _she _was alright? It was almost ridiculous. At the end of the day, she wasn’t the one who was going to be sent through the Gates of Justice. These two had more important things to worry about than her. (It figured that the first people to show any sort of kindness to her since It Happened would be just inches away from their own execution blocks.)

Her thoughts were interrupted when one of the guards shoved her roughly with the butt of his rifle. “Get moving, girl,” he instructed her gruffly. “Don’t keep the Chief waiting.”

Right.

Almost regretfully, she tore her gaze away from Cutty Flam and Nico Robin and continued back into the room, where she gave Funkfreed his bowl and set herself to scrubbing the floor where the two prisoners had bled. Her Master ignored her, too engrossed with staring at his golden transponder snail and muttering megalomaniacal things to himself. (And she was shaking again. Why couldn’t she stop?)

Fortunately, a Marine burst into the room just then with an urgent call for her Master, which distracted him from letting his fingers stray _far too close _to that button. Not so fortunate was when her little “mistake” about the transponder snail receiver was discovered and Master Spandam dragged her over to the desk by her hair so he could whip her with the cord for the oversight. He then smiled unpleasantly in a way that she’d long since learned meant he’d thought up some particularly _creative _way to punish someone and proceeded to drag her back outside the office and throw her bodily at the prisoners’ feet.

Both cried out to her Master to leave her alone. She wished they wouldn’t. They would only make things worse for her.

Predictably, Master Spandam just laughed at their outrage and began to taunt Nico Robin about the imminent death of her friends, holding up the transponder snail he’d received from the Marine a short while ago so they could all listen to the report of their capture.

Except… the Straw Hats had not been captured. She hadn’t quite caught the first part of the report since she’d received a particularly harsh kick to the ribs that knocked the breath out of her when the Marine on the horn mentioned that he couldn’t get through to her Master’s direct line (she still wasn’t sorry), but it seemed that the Straw Hats and their allies were actually… _winning _this fight. She hadn’t thought that they would go down easily of course, but this? She hadn’t been expecting _this. _Sixty pirates? All the way into the courthouse plaza? The giants that guarded the gates siding with the enemy? Casualties of over _two thousand men_?

If she could have breathed properly, she might have even laughed at the look on her Master’s face.

As Master Spandam rushed back into his office to take a look at the damage from the window in a panic, that’s exactly what Cutty Flam did. He had a good laugh, she noted. Loud and from the belly. “You doin’ okay, kid?” he asked her, still hooting with laughter since they could all clearly hear the screams of confusion coming from the office and the terrified whimpers of the Marine still on the line on the transponder snail that her Master had dropped.

She sat up and briefly tested her range of motion before she nodded shyly at him, satisfied that nothing was broken.

“You should hide,” Nico Robin advised her. She _looked _calm. Bored even. But her voice wavered. “It seems like things are getting dangerous.”

“It is far more dangerous to hide from my Master, miss,” she told her sternly, and pushed herself painfully to her feet. This she knew well from experience, and chose to ignore their wide-eyed speechlessness at her statement. She nearly ran back into Master Spandam’s office.

Those two were full of dangerous ideas, and if she listened to them any longer she would start to _want._

She arrived just in time to watch Blueno fall at the hands of a person who must be Straw Hat Luffy, just outside the window. (She thought he’d be taller.) The sight clearly terrified Master Spandam, and he ran back outside and screeched for the guards to gather CP9 and take the prisoners down to the Gates of Justice immediately. The thought made her stomach hurt, but standing alone in her Master’s office aside from stupid Funkfreed, she could only resign herself to helplessness in the matter. Even as a loud scream of Nico Robin’s name echoed out from where she knew Straw Hat Luffy to be standing, she knew he wouldn’t be able to get to them in time.

At least, that was what she _thought _until Nico Robin and Cutty Flam literally _exploded _through two walls, the flying bricks and plaster narrowly missing where she was standing.

What the…?

After taking a moment to steady her racing heart, she ran over to where she saw Cutty Flam –now free of his chains—and Nico Robin staggering to their feet. Nico Robin was staring almost horrified out towards where a figure wearing a straw hat was clearly visible, standing above the bridge, and didn’t respond when her large companion commented on the opportunity this gave them.

“Oh. Hey kid,” Cutty Flam greeted her, glancing her way as he dusted off one shoulder. “We didn’t catch you in the blast, did we?”

“No sir,” she responded weakly, and could only stand and stare as Marines began to rush into the room and Cutty Flam turned to fight them.

She’d never seen anyone fight like that before. It was _incredible_.

Straw Hat was yelling again, but Nico Robin seemed to be in some sort of shock. “Luffy…” she whispered, but didn’t seem too inclined to further engage with his cheerful promises of rescue. Then…

“_Stop it!_” Nico Robin exploded, louder and more emotional than she’d ever seen her. “How many times do I have to tell you?” she demanded. “I’m not coming back. I’m not part of your crew anymore! Just go away. I don’t want to see your faces ever again, don’t you understand? Why did you come to save me in the first place? Why can’t you just let me go? I never asked for this! You’ve gone too far. For the last time… _I don’t want you here!_” A pause, in which Nico Robin stared out at her (ex?) Captain with wild eyes, breathing hard. “Do you hear me? I just want to die!”

Silence. She openly gaped. She was well aware that Nico Robin was attempting to save her crew’s lives by doing this, but even still… she didn’t know them, but even for her, that was hard to listen to. The words seemed to twist something secret inside her painfully.

And then Master Spandam was there, clapping and laughing like this woman’s pain was the funniest thing he’d ever seen. (If she thought she’d hated him before, she _definitely _hated him now.) But there wasn’t anything she could do, because she was small and weak and helpless and CP9 had arrived and kicked Cutty Flam to the side, and it was all the bravery that she could muster that kept her rooted to the spot just inside the opening that had been created in the wall. So close (too close!) to the monsters that lined themselves up outside and laughed at their own comrade’s defeat.

Nico Robin and Straw Hat Luffy didn’t seem to even register the interruption and continued with their shouted conversation as if they weren’t surrounded by smug enemies.

“You wanna die?” the pirate protested incredulously.

“That’s right,” Nico Robin shot back with an entirely disturbing amount of confidence.

She wasn’t sure if she was resentful of or grateful for Master Spandam’s sense of sadism. On one hand, she truly did hope that these people got away from this hellhole. On the other, it was cruel of him to draw out their emotional agony instead of letting his pet assassins kill them quickly. She _definitely _didn’t appreciate the way he dragged her along with him as he strut outside by the back of her collar like an unruly puppy. This wasn’t a scene she wanted any involvement in whatsoever.

“Robin, I don’t know what to say!” Straw Hat Luffy exclaimed, and… was he _picking his nose_? “That sounds dumb. We’re already here and it was a lot of trouble, so we’re gonna go ahead and save you. And if you still wanna die after we’re all back together? That’s your choice.” The roof behind him exploded, and one by one, figures began to line up at his side that she presumed from Nico Robin’s emotional reaction were his crew. They all called out to their missing crewmate, asking her to come back, and they were just so _happy _to see her!

It made her homesick for people she knew she could never return to. She didn’t blame Nico Robin for crying. These people were attempting to conquer _Enies Lobby _for her.

But then… reality came crashing down. Master Spandam reminded them all –her and Robin especially—why attempting escape right now would be the height of stupidity. She didn’t like hearing the name Ohara, but she’d gone out of her way to memorize the names of every single island that had It done to them. Whether it was out of fear or some small intention of memorium, even she wasn’t quite sure. But hearing Nico Robin speak of Ohara… hearing Nico Robin speak of _Buster Call_…

She allowed a tear to escape her for the first time since she’d watched the World Government destroy Starcrest with that same power.

“If you trigger a Buster Call,” Nico Robin warned them all with the weight of twenty years’ worth of fear and darkness haunting her words, “_everything _will be destroyed. That includes all of Enies Lobby, and most likely you as well.”

“Nonsense, what are you saying?” Master Spandam protested. “They wouldn’t kill someone as important as me! I’m not falling for your bluff. Besides,” he added with a sneer as he lifted her off her feet and shook her in the air for emphasis with the grip on her collar that he’d never relinquished. Her arms and legs scrambled for purchase as she choked, but of course, she only found empty air. “There’s nothing you can tell me about a Buster Call that this stupid runt already hasn’t!” He dropped her to the ground again.

The glare that Nico Robin pinned him with should have melted him down like scrap metal on the spot. “Twenty years ago, everything was taken from me,” she pressed. “Many innocent lives were lost, all with one push of a button. They summoned a terrible demon, and now it rears its head again, pinning its sights again on the friends I worked so hard to find!” She stood then, and directed her words at the six figures assembled on the ramparts across from them. “The more I wish for us to be together, the more my ugly fate bares its fangs at you! Even now, no matter how far we sail, there’s an enemy that haunts me at every turn. Because I’m facing the world, and all of its darkness! First it was Alokiji, and now CP9! I’ve dragged you into my troubles twice already. If it goes on and on like this, no matter how kind you may be, someday you’ll see me as a burden! Someday you’ll be forced to betray me and throw me away! That’s what I’m most afraid of, understand? That’s why I didn’t want you to rescue me! If that’s the only future I have, I’d rather die to spare me that pain!” she screamed.

Would this have been her future, she wondered, if she had managed to escape the World Government in the aftermath of her own encounter with Buster Call? She wouldn’t wish the life of a slave on anyone but… at least she knew where she stood, and what to expect. There were no friends to betray her here. Was that better? She wasn’t sure.

And –because of _course _he did—Master Spandam laughed. “There you have it!” he gloated. “What a shame. Even if you make friends, all you can do is drag them through the mud with you. You would have been better off if they’d caught you young, like we did with the runt here! But it doesn’t matter anymore. You can’t win, pirates. Look at this flag!” He gestured dramatically upwards, but she refused to look up at something she hated so much. Instead, she glanced across at where Nico Robin was standing and wondered if she was looking at her future. The woman was staring right back, and she wondered if Nico Robin had ever met another survivor of a Buster Call. She knew she hadn’t.

“That’s a symbol of the unity of over 170 countries,” her Master continued, positively gleeful. “A power spanning the four seas and the Grand Line. This is the world itself! Just give up already. Do you realize how strong we are, and how devoted we are to capturing her?”

She wasn’t sure how she’d expected the Straw Hat pirates to respond. She certainly hadn’t expected them to shoot down the flag!

Just like Papa had.

Something like awe filled her, even as she nearly choked on a fresh wave of terror for these kind, incredible pirates. How long had it been since she’d been able to remember him without feeling only pain? Even if the Straw Hate pirates died, she’d be eternally grateful to them for reminding her about how proud she was of her family and her homeland. Her Papa would have liked these pirates who were bold enough to declare war on the World Government.

“You’re all going to die!” her Master burst out. “You morons can’t challenge the entire world and expect to win!”

She smiled. She was smiling and crying, because she knew that it wasn’t about _winning_. People like Spandam couldn’t understand. That’s why they were afraid of people like these. Of people like the ones who’d lived on Ohara. Of people like _hers _had been.

“Robin!” Straw Hat Luffy screamed. “I still haven’t heard you say it! Say you want to live!”

For a moment, she thought that Nico Robin wouldn’t answer. That she was broken enough that she’d let this last chance pass her by. But then, through her tears, Nico Robin finally gave her answer. “I want to live!” she cried, the raw _feeling _she suddenly projected almost overwhelming to witness. “Take me out to sea with you!”

The air nearly sparked at the declaration as the invading pirates readied themselves and Cutty Flam burst into appreciative tears.

Things happened quickly after that. The drawbridge began to lower but was stopped. And then Cutty Flam pulled the blueprints for Pluton out of his chest, and held them up in front of Master Spandam.

She wanted to scream at him for doing something so stupid when Kaku and Lucci confirmed that they were the real deal, and he declared his intentions to gamble on the integrity of Nico Robin and the success of her crew.

It was almost remarkable how quickly Master Spandam released Nico Robin and lunged for her instead, dragging her over by her hair and releasing her sea prism collar with a quick twist of the key he wore on his wrist. “Get those blueprints runt, _now_!” he howled, shoving her in Cutty Flam’s direction once it was clear he intended to destroy the blueprints. She nearly collapsed from the combination of that shove and her powers slamming full force back into her body so quickly, but managed to keep to her feet even as she could feel both Nico Robin and Cutty Flam staring at her with a mixture of curiosity and horror, unsure what a tiny girl like her was supposed to do in this situation.

And what could she do? Surrounded here by CP9, she could do nothing but obey.

“Yes, Master.” She didn’t want to do it. She didn’t want to give someone as disgusting and power-hungry as her Master those blueprints. So she would try. (But not that hard.)

Shaking hard, she raised a hand towards where Cutty Flam held the thick packet of papers above whatever fresh hell he had stored in that arm of his. Instantly, they began to rustle as if caught by an invisible windstorm and tug strongly in her direction.

She thanked every god she could think of that Cutty Flam was faster than she was and incinerated the plans (With his breath, like a dragon!) before she could yank them out of his grip, even as she cowered away from the flames and fell over backwards to avoid the blast of heat. Shockingly enough, Nico Robin stepped forwards and placed herself between her and Master Spandam’s grieving form, correctly anticipating that she would be punished for this failure. Not that it would do much good of course, but she appreciated the thought.

But for once, Master Spandam’s first move wasn’t to hurt her. Instead, he ran at Cutty Flam and pushed him off the edge of the building and into the abyss.

She hadn’t expected the Straw Hats to jump after him, nor had she expected for them to be saved by a _sea train _of all things, and to crash directly through the front doors of the Tower of Law. Then again, she was sensing a pattern of expecting the unexpected with this group. Not that she had the opportunity to dwell on it. Master Spandam moved quickly (as he always did when he felt his life was endangered) and dragged Nico Robin away from her and back into the office, slamming her collar back into place as he passed and barking for her to follow.

CP9 remained where they were for the moment, as her Master issued orders to them to kill all the Straw Hats with the exception of Lucci, who he demanded accompany them as a bodyguard. Grabbing Funkfreed, Master Spandam apparently then deemed himself prepared to go and yanked his prisoner forwards. She stuck closely to his heels. Not out of any particular desire to be obedient, but because Lucci walked near-silently behind her; and though she’d never dare to walk in front of or even beside her Master, she wanted to be as far away as possible from that man. She stayed completely silent and kept her head down as they opened the vault doors and descended down into the underground passage that led towards the Gates of Justice. Despite having lived here for months now, she’d never gone this way before. The close walls echoed Master Spandam’s nasally voice rather unpleasantly, and it was a long, tense walk.

Were the Straw Hats still coming, she wondered? She hoped so. She didn’t want Master Spandam to have this victory. Not only because the thought of giving this disgusting excuse for a man even more power than he already had was beyond horrifying, but because… Nico Robin was nice. The woman had been kind to her even when she didn’t know her and was literally being walked to her death, and she didn’t want her to be taken and tortured for information. CP9 was powerful, but they were also arrogant. She hoped Nico Robin’s crew would be able to pull it off, because if not… she knew very well what would happen to their friend, and to the world.

Her palms were sweaty and her heart pounded away unevenly in her chest just thinking about it. Not good. She forced herself to focus solely on putting one foot in front of the other, and on regulating her breathing. She’d long since learned how to push her own mind down and quiet and away from the present. Sometimes, she’d found, the best thing to do was to stop _thinking_. She’d have never survived the past year of her life otherwise.

The tunnel trembled slightly, and a distant rumble and crash echoed out from behind them.

“Maybe it was one of those pirates breaking down the doors,” Lucci suggested when Master Spandam began to splutter nervously about the noise.

“Impossible! Don’t be absurd!” her Master protested, his voice going high-pitched. “There’s no way they could have even found them. It was nothing!”

Lucci’s voice was dry, clearly tired of dealing with his idiot chief but resigned to the necessity. “Actually, there is a way,” he pointed out. “A child and her pet were following us. They could’ve told them.”

Master Spandam’s eyes nearly bugged out of his head as he spun around to face his bodyguard and demand why he hadn’t stopped them if he’d noticed.

Lucci stopped too, and she took the opportunity to hurriedly shuffle Nico Robin out from between them and against the wall of the tunnel a few feet behind them. It wasn’t a lot of distance, but she didn’t want either of them in between the two men while they were arguing like this. Clearly, Nico Robin agreed, as she was pliant in her hands.

“Because,” Lucci smirked, the pigeon on his shoulder staring Master Spandam down with its beady little eyes. “I wasn’t ordered to do so.”

Predictably, her Master exploded into whining protests. “So you’re telling me that those pirates could be on their way to us right now?” he concluded, stomping his foot.

“That’s a fair assessment.”

Master Spandam let out a terrified squeal. “Now listen up Lucci, your top priority over any other order given is the protection of my life!” he insisted. “You must eliminate every single person who would do me harm or get in the way of my plans! Anyone who defies me is committing an act of treason against the World Government and they deserve nothing less than a death sentence!”

From where she was pressed against her side, she felt Nico Robin stiffen at those words. The woman shot a deadly glare at Master Spandam, who unfortunately seemed to notice. She cringed and tried to nudge Nico Robin into looking away, well aware of her Master’s penchant for attacking people weaker than him when he felt afraid or powerless or otherwise emasculated, but the woman didn’t budge.

“Hey, what’s that look for?” Master Spandam growled. Without hesitation, he prowled over and backhanded Nico Robin across the face with enough force that she collapsed. “And you! What are you doing over here hiding like such a useless coward, runt? Keep a lookout or I’ll have Lucci kill you with the pirates!”

“Y-yes Master.”

He backhanded her as well, smacking her into the cold bricks of the wall before turning back to where he’d left Nico Robin. “You have no time to worry about others,” he informed the prisoner darkly. “Hell is waiting for you just up ahead. Lucci, pick her up and bring her along.”

Wordlessly, the agent obeyed and dragged Nico Robin to her feet by the elbow, no doubt putting painful pressure on her restrained wrists as he started walking. Picking herself up with just a fleeting thought to be thankful that it wasn’t _her _that Lucci was manhandling, she took up a place walking behind the pair so that she could shoot occasional nervous glances back down the dark tunnel. It was silent now, except for their footsteps and breathing. If pirates were following them, she couldn’t detect them with her senses as deadened as they were. All she could do at the moment was hope.

It felt like almost a hundred years had passed before she heard it. Faintly. Enough that she might have dismissed it as a fanciful imagining of her mind if she hadn’t been so certain that this particular crew would stop at _nothing _to bring their friend back. A voice, from behind them. She stumbled in her stride, and Nico Robin halted altogether, blue eyes staring back down the dim expanse of the passageway searchingly. Master Spandam grew impatient with the delay and had Lucci drag the woman alongside him again, but it was enough that they both knew now, she was sure.

The Straw Hats hadn’t given up on Nico Robin.

Master Spandam picked up on that. Perhaps because his prisoner didn’t look quite so miserable now, or because he too had heard the noise despite his blustering protests. She wasn’t sure. He seized the opportunity to call Nico Robin a moron for this hope though, and to inform her of just how weak he thought her crew was and just how close they were to the Bridge of Hesitation. She honestly wasn’t really listening, completely focused now on looking and listening for whoever might be approaching from behind.

Would they take her with them, she wondered, if she asked? If by some miracle these pirates succeeded in defeating all of CP9 and rescuing their friend, would they finally free her from the clutches of the World Government? It was a wild and impossible hope, but she couldn’t help but foster it anyways.

Lucci, she noticed, was watching for pursuers too.

And that’s when they heard it.

“ROBIN!” The scream echoed down the tunnel, and she could help but smile for hearing it. She recognized that voice. It was Straw Hat Luffy himself. From the delighted expression on Nico Robin’s face and the sheer horror on Master Spandam’s, they recognized him too.

Lucci stepped forward then. “Take Nico Robin and go on ahead,” he told her Master calmly. “I’ll handle this.”

Master Spandam didn’t hesitate to leave his pet assassin behind in the base of the tower to deal with the approaching threat, and nearly bolted up the stairs with his prisoner and slave pulled along in his wake. It was all the pair of them could do just to keep up with the pace he set up the steep steps as he muttered angrily to himself about the situation and went to call CP9 on his transponder snail. And so she didn’t notice her Master’s mistake until it was far too late.

She stopped dead in her tracks and let out a strangled cry of horror as she stared at the sight of the golden transponder snail clutched in his hand. Following her gaze, Nico Robin gasped and stumbled too, much to her Master’s frustration.

“What is it this time, you—”

“Wait!” Nico Robin exclaimed desperately, cutting him off. “You didn’t press that button, did you?”

A beat of silence as Master Spandam processed. Then he screamed in terror, scrambling in his coat pockets for his other snail while she and Nico Robin just watched him, frozen. It felt like thick bands of iron were constricting her chest. She couldn’t breathe. Screams of people long dead and the blasts of absent canon fire echoed in her ears and she _couldn’t breathe._

A Buster Call. Her _stupid, idiot Master _had just triggered a _Buster Call_!

He was speaking to someone over the transponder snail, she noted distantly. Despairing aloud over his accidental press of the button.

“You have to cancel it right away!” Nico Robin begged him, complete desperation in her voice. “Don’t you realize what you’ve done? Everyone on this island is going to die!”

But Master Spandam only scoffed at her, as if the warning she’d just given her was the stupidest thing he’d ever heard. “Cancel it? Are you kidding? Who do you think I am? You can’t boss me around,” he pointed out. “And so what? What’s wrong with the Buster Call anyways? There’s no reason for me to get worked up over this. I’m the Chief of Cipher Pol Number Nine, after all! To make sure your transfer goes smoothly, I requested a Buster Call. There’s nothing wrong with that. Who cares if it’s a little overkill? It’s a small price to pay to make sure those pirates all get eliminated.”

How… how _dare _he? She couldn’t help herself. Her breathing grew ragged as she was suddenly flooded with despair the memories the entire situation had drawn back to the surface, as well as a healthy dose of impotent rage at her inability to stop this atrocity from happening a second time. “Master, _please_!” she screamed, surprised that the man actually froze at her plea. Though to be fair, she’d never –not once—raised her voice to him before. She’d hardly even said anything to him at all besides ‘yes master’ really. “Please, you have to stop this. There are ten thousand of your men stationed here. I don’t want another island to die!”

“You’re a fool,” Nico Robin added on, panting and trembling with anger. “We told you before, that won’t be the end of it! This is an attack without mercy or humanity. The Buster Call will burn everything on Enies Lobby to the ground! The people, the buildings, even the island itself. Everything in its path, and it won’t stop until nothing remains! That’s the power you’re invoking. If you had any idea what happened in Ohara, you wouldn’t be doing this!”

“No, he knows full well,” she said softly when Master Spandam only smiled in response. Nico Robin sucked in a startled breath and glanced at her nervously, but she was too overwhelmed with emotion to even consider stopping. “Starcrest was completely destroyed with a Buster Call ten months ago, and out of every person that once lived on that island, _I _am its only survivor. Master has reminded me many times. He _knows _what will happen here if he doesn’t stop the attack.”

Master Spandam laughed, and she got the feeling he was genuinely amused by her sudden and unprecedented outburst: though she didn’t doubt she’d pay dearly for it later. “The World Government knows full well the sacrifices involved, but this is an important mission,” he agreed. “Since Cutty Flam burned the blueprints to Pluton before the stupid runt could make a copy, we can’t afford to make a mistake. You, Nico Robin, are the last hope we have of reviving the ancient weapon. A military power that could turn this entire era on its head! Even if we have to sacrifice a few thousand soldiers, it’s better than letting you slip through our fingers again. The runt’s right. I know the consequences, I just don’t care. Don’t think of it as murder. It’s a sacrifice, to protect the future!” He threw out his arms wide in a parody of a wise speaker to emphasize the point. But he wasn’t even done yet. “And speaking of the future, my promotion is riding on this as well,” he added, almost as an afterthought.

Listening to him, she felt sick. Her stomach hurt and she whimpered aloud, squeezing her eyes and fists tightly shut as, despite her best efforts, a few tears began rolling down her cheeks for the first time in months. Dead. Her entire _island _was dead, and no matter how she felt about the World Government, that didn’t mean she wanted so many people to die! She’d seen _enough _of death. She didn’t want this to happen. She just… didn’t understand how Master Spandam could speak of this so casually, as if these people weren’t _his_. As if they weren’t under his care and depending on him for guidance and protection, and as if he wasn’t throwing that trust back into their collective faces!

“_Think _about this!” Nico Robin cried, sounding just as horrified as she felt. “People’s _lives _are at stake.”

“Allow me to remind you that CP9 can kill in the name of Justice,” Master Spandam gloated, his smile only widening at the affect he was having on his audience of two. “So if we think a hundred deaths are needed to save a thousand lives, we will kill those hundred immediately and without question. For true Justice, one must be merciless at times. Besides,” he laughed loudly. “If those idiot soldiers couldn’t even stop a handful of pirates from invading a Government base of this size and importance, they’re better off dead anyways!”

She was currently too upset to really contribute to the conversation anymore, but it seemed that Nico Robin still had her wits about her.

“I… I think the line is still connected on your transponder snail,” the woman said.

Master Spandam released a mortified scream at the realization. The sound pulled her from her tears, at least, and she was able to pull herself together enough to enjoy her Master’s fumbling attempts to backpedal on what she now knew to have been a message broadcasted across the entire island.

“Run!” she screamed at the snail before she lost her chance. “Get away from this place!”

Nico Robin seemed to be on the same train of thought. “Everyone get off the island while you still can! A Buster Call has been invoked on Enies Lobby. If you don’t get away from here in time, you’ll die!” she warned everyone listening.

Neither could add anything more to that however, as Master Spandam punched Nico Robin –who was closest—down the stairwell before turning and slapping her across the face. She didn’t go flying down the stairs, but it was a close shave. Her Master ended the snail call and gave her a preventative kick to the ribs before turning to advance towards Nico Robin while she stayed where she was, spluttering and coughing to try and regain her breath.

“Why couldn’t you keep your damn mouths shut?” Master Spandam seethed. “Now the whole island’s in a panic. What if those pirates get away, huh? You realize they’ll blame me for it, don’t you?”

“Swallow your pride and cancel the Buster Call now, before it’s too late,” was Nico Robin’s response, and she couldn’t help but admire the persistence in that. But Nico Robin didn’t know Master Spandam like she did. He’d never admit a mistake regardless of the consequences, and that knowledge sat as heavy in her chest as if her heart and lungs had turned to stone.

Sure enough, her Master abjectly refused on account of upholding his reputation. (She didn’t know what reputation he thought he had. She had yet to meet a single person who either liked or respected the man after meeting him.) That, and he wanted a promotion.

It was hard to watch him take his frustration out on Nico Robin. She was usually the one in that position, but it was almost worse to watch him hurt someone else than it was to simply pull her mind away from her body and take the violence onto herself silently. But still…

“I won’t give up,” a cuffed and bloodied Nico Robin whispered, even after being thrown down the unforgiving stone stairs again and told that her friends were as good as dead.

She thought that this faith was perhaps the most beautiful thing she’d ever seen.

Growling in frustration, Master Spandam just yanked Nico Robin unkindly to her feet and frog marched her back up the stairs. “Get up, runt,” he hissed at her once they reached where she was still sprawled, a little dazed, on the stairs. Nico Robin’s eyes on her were dark and concerned, and she imagined she looked pretty pathetic at this point after all the blows she’d taken today. (Not that the prisoner was one to talk.) “I’ll deal with _you _once we reach Marine headquarters. Just keep up for now. If you can’t, I’ll throw you right off the Bridge of Hesitation and have done with it. You’re more trouble than you’re worth.”

She gulped and moved to obey, but the moment she’d managed to get back onto her feet was the moment Nico Robin chose to strike. In a surprising show of strength given the fact that she was still wearing sea prism handcuffs, the woman kicked out one of Master Spandam’s knees and yanked herself free. She didn’t have any time to react to this, as Nico Robin spun around and grabbed one of her hands in hers in a moment of incredible dexterity and began to run down the stairs as fast as she could. (Which was actually quite fast given the fact that the woman was dragging her along behind, even with hands that were still cuffed behind her.)

If she’d wanted to, she could’ve gotten away from her. Nico Robin’s grip was loose given her uncomfortable position, and the woman was more injured than she was at this point besides. She didn’t _want _to get away though. Nico Robin’s hands were warm and reassuring, and… she knew full well that it would have been easier for the prisoner to escape on her own.

But Nico Robin had taken her with her anyways.

She gripped tightly onto her would-be savior’s hands, unwilling to relinquish the first non-violent touch and act of kindness she’d received in ten months.

“Ivory Dart!”

They were forcibly separated when stupid Funkfreed hit Nico Robin from behind, slamming the fleeing prisoner so forcibly into the wall that she could have sworn she heard something crunch. (She hated that stupid sword. It got to eat more than she did, and she always had to clean up its poop, and now it had hurt someone who’d been kind to her. This was unforgivable.) She hadn’t been unaffected by the blow, and tumbled painfully down the stairs after taking a glancing blow from one of its tusks to her hip. The wound was bleeding but was relatively shallow, she determined as she lay still and attempted to recover.

Nico Robin, she noticed with some relief, was still conscious and breathing despite clearly being in considerable pain.

Not that Master Spandam had ever given consideration to anyone’s pain but his own. “You stupid woman!” he cackled. “You’ll never escape, especially with that deadweight runt with you. Don’t underestimate me.” He picked her up by the collar and dropped her to her unsteady feet before turning back to Nico Robin. “Now come along through the gate of dreams.” When Nico Robin was unable to immediately stand from where she’d crumpled against the wall, he cruelly grabbed her hair and began to drag her bodily up the stairs, ignoring the woman’s cries of pain and protest as he cursed her further for being a stupid cow that was ruining everything.

She could only follow, heart and body aching and wishing there was something she could do to make her Master stop hurting Nico Robin. She knew there wasn’t though. There was a reason her own hair was kept long and down at all times. Master Spandam didn’t allow her to cut it or pull it back, because he _liked _causing pain like this. He was a weak man, and it made him feel powerful.

It took a long time for them to make it up the stairs. She wasn’t sure if Nico Robin really was too injured to walk on her own, or if she was just buying time by making Master Spandam drag her bodily up the stairs himself, but it was working either way. Still, it didn’t seem long enough. (She could hear the sounds of fighting down below, and presumed that Straw Hat Luffy was now fighting with Lucci. All this told her was that he was still alive, not when or if he would be coming for his nakama.) And far too soon, they found themselves standing atop the Bridge of Hesitation, unbearably close to the gargantuan Gates of Justice. Gates that were ever so slowly starting to open.

“Once I step through those Gates, I’ll be the Government’s hero. No, I’ll be a hero to the entire world!” Master Spandam rhapsodized, his mannerisms becoming gleeful once more at the sight. “The bridge to the Gates is rising as we speak. Can you hear it? It’s calling out to its hero! Though for you, it must look more like a path into hell, right? Take a good look!”

“No!” Nico Robin cried, and began struggling. She headbutted Master Spandam right in the face, and they both fell to the ground. Nico Robin was made out of tougher stuff than he was though, and was back on her feet seemingly in an instant while he remained on the ground, clutching his face and howling about how she was a stupid woman.

It was in this moment that she made her choice. She refused to allow Nico Robin to pass through those Gates. Living like this as she had… a life of slavery wasn’t a life at all. She would escape with Nico Robin today or she would die trying, and she’d have no regrets no matter how things turned out. Regardless of any amount of sea prism, cuffs, or collars, she was a Warrior of Starcrest –the last one there would ever be—and she would be proud to die like one if it came down to it!

So she took Nico Robin by the elbow and began running. The woman stumbled and nearly collapsed, clearly beyond exhausted, but she held her upright through sheer force of will despite the differences in their sizes and did her best to keep them going.

It was futile, of course. Trapped by sea prism, they were both made helpless. Master Spandam caught up to them easily, punching her in the back of the head so hard that she face-planted into the flagstones. Without her support, Nico Robin fell too, and she braced herself for her Master’s rage… but she was momentarily surprised when she didn’t immediately experience more pain. That was because of her companion, she soon realized. Nico Robin had fallen on top of her and completely curled her larger body around her smaller one, and was taking every kick that Mast—no, just _Spandam—_was dishing out as he berated the pair of them, calling them every derogatory name his slimy little mind could think of.

She was far too stunned by this gesture of protection to do anything about the situation. Though thankfully, Spandam was in too much of a hurry to really take his time and soon laid off. Still fuming, he grabbed each of them by the hair and hauled them to their feet.

“Have some dignity,” he snapped. “Neither of you are going to ruin this for me.”

With a thunderous boom, the bridge finished rising from the water and settled firmly in place, and her heart fell. Spandam laughed and dropped her again so he could call on his transponder snail for some sort of ego-stroking escort, but she could only stare in horror at the way the Gates of Justice just kept opening wider and wider. What was she going to _do_?

Nico Robin, obviously terrified, attempted to run despite Spandam’s firm grip on her hair. She’d just moved to help –how, she hadn’t quite thought through yet—when Nico Robin ripped free on her own and left Spandam with nothing but a handful of her shiny black locks. Immediately, he chased after, and she was hot on his heels. She didn’t care what he said. They weren’t going to die today. They _weren’t_.

Spandam tackled Nico Robin to the ground. What he hadn’t been expecting was for her to run up from behind him and slam into him in turn, sending him flying off of his prisoner.

She was light. But she wasn’t untrained. She stood protectively over Nico Robin, breathing hard as she stared at her former Master with more defiance than she’d ever felt in her entire life. “Leave her alone,” she instructed him firmly.

Spandam gaped at her, as if he’d never even considered the possibility of her turning against him. “W-what are you doing, you idiotic runt?” he exploded. “You _dare _raise a hand to _me, _your Master? I’ll kill you for this!”

“THAT’S NOT MY NAME!” she screamed at him and _oh_, that felt good to say. All the fear and pain she’d felt since she’d been taken from the burning shores of Starcrest but never properly felt at the time seemed to boil up violently in her now, and she felt _dangerous_. Like the cork in the mouth of a shaken-up cola bottle. She could tell that Spandam was taken aback from the sudden righteous fury that had overtaken his previously docile and dead-eyed slave girl, but he should have seen this coming, she thought. He’d been messing around with a Buster Call, after all, and there was only so far you could push people before they snapped.

“My name is Serin Ishu!” she declared proudly, her voice confident and clear. She hadn’t heard it said out loud since her Papa died, but saying it now, she –Ishu—felt as if she was regaining something she’d never even realized she lost. “I am the last Warrior of Starcrest, terrors of the Calm Belt, and I will _no longer be your slave_!”

Beneath her, Nico Robin gasped, and for the life of him, Spandam didn’t seem to know how to respond to this declaration. “I… You… You can’t just _do that_,” he argued.

Ishu just stared at him and slid into a fighting stance that she hadn’t taken in ten months. It felt strong and familiar, even though her strength had been taken.

Unfortunately, Spandam’s brain seemed to have finally caught up with the reality of the situation, and he got back to his feet with a black scowl. “I’ll never understand stupid women like you two,” he said as he advanced. “Why do you want to live freely so badly? You’re criminals, understand? The only way you can make the world a better place is by serving people like me or by dying! Why must you be such annoyances all the way to the bitter end?” He lunged for them. Ishu dodged his initial grab and landed a sharp punch to his gut, but it wasn’t enough and his kick caught her in the side of the head, sending her skidding across the stones a ways while he set in on Nico Robin.

Head ringing, she feebly struggled to stand. To do _something. _But black spots were swimming in her field of vision now and her limbs felt slow and clumsy.

“Would you look at yourselves! I’ve never seen such a pathetic sight!” Spandam laughed over them. It made Ishu worry to see how still Nico Robin was now, despite not having allowed herself to be moved from the edge of the bridge. Especially when he began kicking her in the back of the head again. He seemed to realize that she could only take so much before actually dying though, thankfully, and instead produced a rope that he used to get some leverage on her.

When he began dragging her away towards where Ishu could hear the Marines from the escort ship lining up, she leaped up and attempted to pull Nico Robin back.

Unfortunately, being made of paper, tug of war had never been Ishu’s strong suit. “No!” she cried.

Spandam just kicked her away, laughing, and delightedly informed Nico Robin that not only was the little slave girl a useless friend, even if one of her _other _useless friends were to make it past Lucci, he’d already set up a landmine by the stairs.

“I won’t go through that gate,” she forced out from her position on the ground. Spandam stopped and stared at Nico Robin incredulously, which Ishu couldn’t quite blame him for. The woman was hogtied, restrained by sea prism, and injured to boot.

“…What?”

“I still believe they’ll come to save us.”

It was almost funny, how irrationally angry Spandam could get when baited like this. “They’ll be burned to a crisp, just like everything else in Buster Call’s path, you got that?” he snapped at her. “It’s rather convenient actually. All the humiliations I’ve suffered here will be erased as well. Just like before, twenty years ago, when that Marine giant attacked us in Ohara.” He punched her a few times, but Nico Robin seemed too shocked by the revelation to really respond to the pain. “Now it’s time to walk, on your own two feet, dammit!”

Ishu picked herself up again. “An island is its people!” she snarled, leaping at Spandam once more. Gracelessly this time, like an angry cat. “You couldn’t erase Ohara, and you won’t erase Starcrest, because we’re still alive!”

“Ah! Get it off!” Spandam screeched, flailing wildly and batting around his head where Ishu had latched onto his shoulders and was attempting to scratch out his eyes.

“Are you okay Chief, do you need help?” one of the Marines stationed by the gate offered.

“Yes, you dimwit!” Spandam snapped. “This girl is a complete unwashed savage!” (Ishu fought even harder after that comment. Those words had been used to justify the genocide committed against her people, and she didn’t appreciate hearing them again. The World Government were the savages, not _them._)

It took the both of them to pry her free, and Ishu was satisfied to note from the arms of the Marine restraining her that Spandam now sported some rather deep scratches on his face and neck. They looked painful. Good.

“You stupid runt,” Spandam spat at her. “Death is too good for you. I’m going to sell you to a pleasure house in Mariejois! Maybe there they can teach you some manners. As for _you._” He swung around to face where he’d left Nico Robin. “If you thought I didn’t know anything about that, then you’re dead wrong. Your old friend Jaguar D. Saul was a Vice Admiral before he betrayed us, and your mother Nico Olvia an archeologist. I know about your hometown of Ohara as well. Quite the sad story, isn’t it? And how do I know all this? Simple. Because the man who commanded the raid on Ohara, uncovered their crimes, then blew the island to smithereens with the power of Buster Call was none other than my predecessor to my position here at CP9, Spandine! My father!”

Clearly, this was something Nico Robin hadn’t known. Her shock and horror were palpable, and she looked at Spandam now as if she’d just seen a ghost.

“How was it?” Spandam continued, pleased at the reaction he was garnering. “Running from one money-grubbing adult to the next, hoping you weren’t going to be killed or sold out?” He lifted her head up by the hair again, and it hurt for Ishu to see that Nico Robin looked like she was near tears. “Not a single person you could trust no matter where you went. Nowhere to lay your little head down in peace. Nothing to eat. What a vile and wretched existence you’ve had! Too appalling to even think about.”

Nico Robin _did _cry then. So did Ishu, struggling uselessly against her captor, who held firm.

“Sad enough for you to cry about, huh? Twenty years ago, my father put that bounty on your little head. All for world peace! Show some gratitude, will you? Now we finally have our happy ending. The son completes the father’s crusade against the devils of Ohara, and the work of twenty years is completed at last! The stupid runt was right. Ohara still lives as long as you do, but now?” He smiled unpleasantly. “I have you now. Ohara is _dead_!”

“Ohara won’t die as long as I live!” Nico Robin shouted back at him, tears still streaming down her dirty and bloody face.

“Yeah, and how long is _that _gonna be, huh?” Spandam challenged.

And that’s when the land mines at the stairs exploded, and Cutty Flam was thrown off the Bridge of Hesitation and into the ocean below.

Ishu’s captor dropped her in surprise, and she quickly ran over to Nico Robin and began fumbling with the ropes that bound her. Without being able to unlock the sea prism cuffs, pulling off the ropes wouldn’t do much but… she didn’t know what else to try.

It didn’t help. Spandam came back and the Marine recovered, and they were soon both being dragged inexorably towards the Gates. Ishu kicked and bit and squirmed but she was still so _weak_, and Nico Robin was just lying there and crying and…

It all came to a sudden halt when Spandam’s head exploded.

Well, sort of. He was still alive, but he’d been hit by some sort of projectile, it seemed. The Marines too began dropping to a seemingly invisible foe, and Ishu didn’t question her luck enough to miss this chance. The moment her Marine fell, she was free, and ran back to help Nico Robin to her feet. “Come on,” she gasped. “We’ve got to go!”

Nico Robin seemed to agree, and stood. “It’s okay Ishu,” she said with a radiant smile that made Ishu’s breath catch in her throat even as they began to run. “We’ll be okay. It’s Usopp. They’ve come for us.”

Ishu could only stare at her with wide eyes. “O-okay,” she puffed. Nico Robin’s smile –impossibly—widened a bit at this acquiescence, but dimmed as they heard the sounds of rifles being cocked behind them. Quickly, the woman pushed Ishu in front of her so that her body was placed between the child and the threat, ignoring Ishu’s cry of protest and the certainty that not even this would likely prevent the bullets from hitting her.

For a moment, Ishu was convinced they were both going to be shot down right here. But then… Cutty Flam was there, with the bullets meant for them bouncing harmlessly off his body, and Ishu could have hugged him she was so relieved to see him. She could feel Nico Robin’s heartbeat thundering against her back, and it was an unexpectedly comforting reassurance to know for sure that she was still alive.

“Who the hell is that?” one of the Marines squawked.

Nico Robin exhaled shakily and straightened up from her protective crouch. “Franky,” she breathed. (And Ishu was confused, but she guessed that Franky was less of a mouthful than Cutty Flam anyways. Besides, now wasn’t the time to ask about the name change.)

“Bullets aren’t a problem when you’re made of metal,” Franky announced matter-of-factly. “But that landmine wasn’t very nice, Spanda.”

Ishu was very impressed that Franky was durable enough to brush off an explosion like that. She was even _more _impressed that the Straw Hat pirates had gathered all the keys to the sea prism handcuffs. While Franky tried out the keys he already had in Nico Robin’s cuffs, Ishu scampered to retrieve the red bundle that Sogeking (Usopp?) had shot over that held the others, and finally, _finally_, Nico Robin was freed. Ishu could almost see the invisible weight of the sea prism lifting off her narrow shoulders and filling her with a vitality that just hadn’t been there before.

She knew what it felt like to have your strength and power returned to you so abruptly though, and sympathized when the woman nearly collapsed in Franky’s hold.

“Hold on, we’re not in the clear yet!” he complained, his hold on her surprisingly gentle for being such a large man.

For her part, Ishu was relishing Spandam’s screeching as he realized that every last member of his precious CP9 had been defeated. He was an awful person and she liked to watch him panic like this, and it certainly didn’t hurt that the CP9 agents were awful people too. Whatever the Straw Hats had done to them, Ishu rather vindictively hoped it had hurt. (From the sound of the conversation that Nico Robin was having with the sniper over the transponder snail, it rather sounded like it had.)

And then… “Seis Fleur: Slap!” Nico Robin called out, and Ishu couldn’t help but gasp in awe when six arms sprouted from Spandam’s own body and began to beat him.

She quite honestly hadn’t thought she’d _ever _see something as wonderful as that image ever again in her whole life. That is, she hadn’t until she saw one of the arms pull something off of Spandam’s wrist and throw it back to Robin, who caught it and offered it to Ishu with a grin. It was the key to her collar. (This. This was better.)

She burst into grateful tears.

“Turn around, kid,” Franky told her cheerfully over the sound of slapping and Spandam’s pained cries. “I’ll help!”

In the end, it was so simple. Just a twist and a click, and the collar that Ishu had worn for so many months fell harmlessly into her hands. The air was cold against the skin of her neck –scarred and still sporting a few sores from where it had constantly rubbed against her collar—and she felt…

Well, she just _felt._

Ishu threw the collar into the ocean as far out as she could manage. It would never be used to make a person into a possession ever again.

Never again.

“Easy,” Franky told her as she swayed on her feet, momentarily feeling drunk with the combination of her powers and strength crashing back into her like a tidal wave and the simple joy of being free. (She was _free_.) He steadied her with one giant hand on her back, and Ishu leaned into it for a moment as she re-oriented herself.

“Thank you,” she said simply. She owed them more than she could ever possibly repay.

Nico Robin laughed lightly. “It was our pleasure, Ishu.” With a final slap, Spandam was down for the count, and Franky shot her a wink as he once again began speaking into the transponder snail. They still had to escape, after all.

But this time… this time, Ishu could help.

The World Government had feared the Warriors of Starcrest enough to slaughter them for a _reason_, after all.

That was when the first cannon hit. “Buster Call…” Ishu whispered weakly when the iron fence encircling Enies Lobby was blown open. At her side, Nico Robin made a strangled noise. A second cannon was fired. And then a third.

But the Straw Hats were on their way, they said. That, at least, was something of a relief.

“Well, I guess we better get things in order here,” Franky deduced, before tilting his head towards Nico Robin. “How you feeling right now? Up for a fight?”

The woman grinned. It looked almost strange on someone who looked like (and had been) recently beaten within an inch of her life. “Of course.”

Franky nodded once before pinning Ishu –and her small, too-thin frame—with a sharp look. “Stay put, kid,” he instructed sternly. “We’ll take it from here.”

Ishu laughed. “I don’t take orders anymore, didn’t you hear?” she asked. (And even just saying that out loud was complete _exhilaration_.) “Just keep those flames of yours to yourself. I’m flammable.” She didn’t wait for him to respond, and instead flexed her powers, allowing the wind to catch her body at just the right angle and springing towards the assembled Marines so quickly she nearly vanished from view altogether. “Flutter!”

Ishu was small. Being made of paper, strength would never be her best quality. But she _was _fast. Very fast, in fact. When she bent her willpower towards a task as her elders on her home island had always taught her to do, there was very little she couldn’t accomplish. CP9 all thought of themselves as superhuman, but they all focused too hard on what they could _do _rather than becoming a person capable of doing great things. (And there _was _a difference.) Their spirits were weak, and because of that, they were limited. They’d never understood that it was a person’s will –not their physical strength—that most affected their ability to influence the world, and that the will could be manifested in an infinite number of ways if it was strong enough. In ways that were far more impressive than the Six Powers they always boasted of.

Ishu was just as fast –and far more flexible—than they were. These Marines didn’t even know she’d flown past them until it was far too late to stop her.

“Paper Cut!” Once she was on top of the group of Marines closest to the back (She figured that Franky would be more suited to taking the ones in the front.) a paper katana manifested from her hands, its cutting edge blackened. She’d hamstringed three of them before they even realized what happened.

Gunfire sounded out from behind her, and a quick glance told Ishu that Franky and Nico Robin were dealing out far more damage at once than she ever could. Still, it felt nice to help. (And, she admitted to herself, to fight the soldiers of the same World Government that had taken everything away from her.)

“Treinta Fleur!”

“Master Nails!”

“Paper Cut!”

And the second wave of Marines had been subdued, only for a panicking Spandam to send in even more.

“Hey kid, come back here for a second!” Franky called out to her in the pause between fights. Ishu honestly considered ignoring him, but decided that he didn’t sound angry, only excited. She’d listen. She liked him.

“Flutter!”

“That’s very impressive,” Nico Robin complimented her once Ishu rematerialized at her side. They stood back as requested to watch Franky began preparing his attack.

A row of Marines went flying thanks to Weapons Left.

Ishu smiled shyly up at her. “Thank you, Nico Robin,” she said. “It took a very long time for me to learn.”

A large portion of the bridge went up in flames thanks to Brushfire.

“Please, call me Robin,” the woman demurred. “Your devil fruit powers seem quite versatile.”

Yet more Marines went flying thanks to Franky Boxing.

“I ate the paper-paper fruit,” Ishu explained readily. “I’m a paper person now. I’m very flammable and don’t react well to getting wet at all, but most of the time my abilities are only limited by my creativity and ability to focus.”

Franky struck a pose. (No matter how much Ishu liked him, she still thought his outfit was ridiculous.)

Robin made a thoughtful noise. “I’ll keep an eye on Franky then,” she promised. “He likes playing with fire.”

The remaining Marines turned tail and fled after getting an eyeful of Franky Centaur, and quite honestly, Ishu was half-tempted to join them.

“I’d take the fire over _that_,” she muttered, averting her eyes. There were just some things that children shouldn’t have to see.

Chuckling, Robin then sprouted arms on the fleeing soldiers’ heads that began to beat them. The poor men were so terrified that they all ended up jumping off the bridge and into the ocean. The lull in hostilities didn’t last more than a few seconds though, as more reinforcements soon rushed up from the docked ship. It was at this point that Ishu once again dove back into the fray, though she was careful to stay out of Franky’s way. (Despite the fact that the sounds of crunching bones coming from Robin’s direction were objectively more frightening, Ishu realized that Robin would have to deliberately target her to hurt her, whereas it would be relatively easy to get caught up in Franky’s crossfire.) She stuck mostly to the edges of the bridge and made an effort to take out any men with ranged weapons she saw first. Between Flutter and Paper Cut, it wasn’t too difficult. And if she sent a few paper cranes to torment and peck at Spandam while she was at it?

Well, that was her business.

“If nothing else, they sure are persistent, huh?” Franky commented.

“Based on the headcount so far, we’re taking on a full unit,” was Robin’s response.

Ishu would have added her own comment about how at least they were emptying out the ship they were trying to steal when nearly everyone on the battlefield froze and stared in horror at the fleet of warships that suddenly burst through the fog, looming menacingly closely. _Too _closely.

Buster Call.

Beside her, Robin fell to her knees. In all honestly, Ishu wasn’t faring much better as tears began streaking down her cheeks without her permission and she froze, trembling, on the spot as the sound of cannons rang through the air. Her gaze was glassy and fixed on the impenetrable line of seagull sails that drew closer and closer with every moment that passed. She could almost hear them again. (She’d never forgotten the sound.) The battle cries of the Island Guard, the terrified screams of the children they’d set to escape on life rafts that were sunk systematically. The sound of collapsing buildings and the crackle of flames and her _own_ screams as she fought and kicked and bit in Momousagi’s hands, her struggles growing weaker and weaker as the sea prism sapped her of strength…

It was here. She’d _known _it was coming but… how… how were they supposed to escape it again? What about everyone still on the main island? What about everyone here on the bridge? (Her stomach hurt. She heaved. She only choked on bile. No, there wasn’t time for this. She had to live, she’d promised. They still had work to do.)

The Marines that had been attacking them turned tail and fled even as Ishu and her companions stayed rooted to the spot. But the ships sailed smoothly past them. Not a shot was fired at the Bridge of Hesitation. The main island of Enies Lobby was not so lucky, and Ishu couldn’t look away. (She couldn’t stop shaking.)

“H-hey, are you two okay?” Franky asked. He too had been momentarily mesmerized by the scene of destruction happening right before their eyes, but had recovered himself rather quickly.

Whether his resiliency was due to his age, his character, or simply because he’d never seen something like this before, Ishu couldn’t say. She also couldn’t answer him. Neither, she noted, could Robin. The woman had her eyes squeezed tightly shut, and was trembling just as much as Ishu was.

Could she see Ohara in the flames, just as Ishu saw Starcrest?

There were ghosts in Enies Lobby today. Killing intent could do that.

In all this, she could register that there was some sort of commotion happening back at the first tower of the bridge that had moved onto one of the passing Navy vessels, and that one of the Navy ships had fired on their own in response. She understood that somewhere close, Spandam had opened his odious mouth again and was talking with Franky, but she didn’t really process the words. _Papa, _she thought in a daze, _I did the best I could. But if I’m going to die today, at least I didn’t die a slave. Would you be proud of me? _And then Funkfreed erupted into her field of vision, lunging straight towards where Robin was kneeling just to her left; and then _Franky _was there, and the elephant sword had stopped in its tracks, blade inches from Robin’s unprotected head.

Ishu gasped, the present snapping back into focus around her as she watched stupid Funkfreed struggle in Franky’s grip.

For as many people who were present here that were willing to kill an entire island without question in the name of absolute justice, there were also people like Franky. Like Robin, and the Straw Hat crew, and their allies that they’d brought along for the ride. People who just kept _fighting _no matter what for the people they loved, because it was the right thing to do. Hadn’t she asked Papa a year ago, when negotiations failed, why he and the other members of the Counsel had declined the World Government’s request (demand) that they join it despite the likely consequences? Hadn’t he told her that people like those who ran the World Government would only win when everyone else lost the will to fight them? That the right thing and the easy thing were hardly ever the same?

Cutty Flam and Nico Robin had never met before today. But Franky was still risking everything to save Robin’s life, and they _both _stood here with her now, knowing that they’d all likely die, and were still fighting. Like the Warriors of Starcrest had. Like Ishu was going to.

Franky pointed his arm-cannon at Funkfreed and delivered his threats in a flat voice, and the stupid sword capitulated easily.

“Nico Robin, do you still think Straw Hat and the others are coming?” he asked.

Robin took in a shaky breath, but when she spoke, her voice was once again steady. “Without a doubt. They’ll be here.”

Seemingly satisfied, Franky nodded. “I already told you before that I’m betting everything on them, Spanda,” he said, once more looking ahead to where Spandam was standing. “Everyone knows about Enies Lobby, and knows the power of the World Government; but the Straw Hats didn’t care. They knew what they were up against, and they still pressed on. In order to save their friend, they were willing to take on the entire world without hesitation. And that’s my kind of people.” He stepped forwards and grabbed Funkfreed’s face in his big hands. “I’ve never forgotten the role you played in Tom’s death. Every time I thought about your stupid face, I dreamt of smashing it.”

With that, Franky fulfilled his dream and flung (stupid, _stupid_) Funkfreed over his head and into her former Master, crushing him beneath the massive form of the elephant. Ishu grinned, and when Franky released Weapons Left against the remaining Marines, she joined him with an impassioned cry of “Thousand Paper Stars!” and manifested a veritable cloud of black-edged paper throwing stars that went spinning away from her outstretched hands and struck down as many of the men as they could reach.

“Hand over your escort ship right now,” Franky demanded. “I’m making the Straw Hats an escape route, and you’re helping!”

Finally, Robin stood. “And I’m helping too,” she declared.

“This won’t be like Starcrest, or Ohara,” Ishu concluded. “No battle is ever over while there are people willing to keep fighting. Robin-san’s friends aren’t giving up, and neither are we!”

It was startlingly easy to rush past Spandam’s prone form (Ishu made sure to step on his ruined face on her way.) and down the stairs to toss the remaining Marines off their ship. Franky laughed like an excited child the whole time, and even Robin was smiling. Much to Ishu’s shock, Robin even hugged her once it was all over, wrapping a warm arm around her shoulders once Ishu got close enough and whispering a thank you in her ear. (Ishu might have cried a little. The last person to have hugged her was Papa. Until today –until _Robin_—no one had touched her kindly since then. She hadn’t realized how much she’d missed it.)

Thankfully, neither Robin or Franky had time to comment on her reaction, because the next moment, the previously empty deck suddenly became occupied with several waterlogged forms that exploded from the water just offside. Both Robin and Franky clearly recognized them, as they immediately rushed to help.

Ishu would’ve, but she was too busy shrieking in horror at the naked old lady (mermaid??) that had dumped them all on board. The only clothes she wore were two seashells she was using like pasties, and Ishu didn’t think she’d ever get over the combination of old lady and old fish into one body. The old lady fish was yelling at her half-drowned companions to wake up as Franky and Robin pressed the water out of their chests and they came to, spluttering pathetically. Three pirates, a child, a racoon dog, and a rabbit.

“They’re all still alive! It’s a miracle,” Franky breathed. “I can’t believe it. They must have all seen something down there that put them into a state of shock. Whatever it was, it saved their lives, since they stopped swallowing water after they passed out.”

Nightmare grandma sighed in relief. “It makes you wonder what they could’ve seen down there that spooked them so much!”

“It was you!” Franky snapped at her. Ishu agreed with that. She was pretty sure she’d stopped breathing too actually, and took a conspicuous gasp at the reminder of her need for oxygen. (_Somehow_, this was even worse than Franky Centaur. She’d never un-see this.)

Though after that, nightmare grandma thankfully put on some pants, even if she neglected the shirt. Franky begged her to hurry up with dressing, but the old (fish?) lady ignored him completely as she spoke cheerfully to Robin. (How Robin could maintain eye contact so admirably without showing the horror that she knew she must be feeling at the sight, Ishu had no idea.)

The pirates woke up in despair over what they’d seen of the old icefish mermaid –who was apparently named Granny Kokoro—the blonde seeming especially upset. (She and Robin both giggled at his hysterics.) But they soon forgot their traumatic revelation the moment they realized that Robin was also standing on the deck of the ship, alive and no longer imprisoned.

It was all Ishu could do to avoid the flying tack-hugs that were suddenly directed towards the woman. She bolted to stand nervously just behind Franky to avoid getting crushed by Robin’s overenthusiastic nakama. The redhead (Nami) and racoon dog (who could apparently talk and was named Chopper) were clinging onto her and sobbing, and Robin thanked them all warmly for coming to rescue her, sounding terribly emotional and fond of them all.

The reunion was short though. Chopper seemed to be too injured to move around much, so his friends left him in Nami’s and Robin’s care as the man with green hair (Roronoa Zoro, she recalled from the documentation of his bounty) led the way back up the stairs so he could observe Enies Lobby from the Bridge of Hesitation. Sogeking (or Usopp, Ishu still wasn’t clear on that point), Franky, and the blonde with the ridiculous eyebrows (Sanji, she heard the others address him) followed him, leaving the rest of them behind on the deck.

“Will he be okay?” Ishu asked Robin quietly, kneeling at her side where she and Nami were already huddled around their friend. Ishu didn’t know Chopper, but he _was _really cute, and she knew that he was precious to Robin. She wouldn’t wish any kind of hurt on a friend of Robin’s, much less the pain he seemed to be in now.

It was Nami who answered her. “I think so,” she said with a small frown. “He really strained himself back there, but he should be fine after something to eat and some rest.” She stood and glanced at Robin. Some unspoken communication seemed to occur then, as Robin just nodded her head determinedly and Nami rushed off to the other side of the ship.

Though she was curious, Ishu didn’t question what Nami was doing and instead offered Robin a water bottle she’d pulled out of one of the crates on the deck. She’d already finished one off herself, and figured that Robin and Chopper would be equally thirsty. Robin accepted it gratefully, though Ishu noticed that she made sure that Chopper had some before she took even a single sip.

“There will be more fighting soon. We can’t leave until Luffy comes back, and the Marines will most likely take the opportunity to attack hand-to-hand in an attempt to capture me alive again,” Robin said to her quietly once she’d finished. “With the others here to help now, you don’t have to fight, Ishu-chan. You’ve done well so far, but you’ve already done enough, especially for your age. You can wait here on the ship for us, and we can take it from here if it comes to it.”

Ishu frowned. Robin had a fair point. She hurt all over, no doubt because of the beatings she’d received from Spandam earlier in the day, as well as from the extreme physical exertion she was no longer used to putting her body through after all these months. Still, Ishu felt _better _with her collar gone. Better than she had in ages. And if there was ever a time to fight, surely _this _was the moment, wasn’t it? “I’m a little tired, but I’ll be okay,” she admitted to Robin, just as quietly. Chopper wasn’t asleep, but he did appear to be resting as best he could given the circumstances, and she didn’t want to disturb him when they probably didn’t have much time left. “I can still help.”

“Stay close to me then, please?” Robin requested, her voice and shoulders tense. “Just in case?”

Ishu swallowed thickly, the idea that someone still existed who was even slightly concerned about her safety affecting her unexpectedly strongly. “You might not be able to see me the whole time, but I’ll stay close, I promise,” she agreed, though not without warning her about her habit of “disappearing”. It was difficult to pull off, but she imagined the ability would come in handy if the men on board the ships moved to attack them. Closing her eyes to concentrate briefly, she stretched out her senses as far as she could (she’d _missed _being able to view the world with her spirit like this) and touched upon a few of the strongest of the auras surrounding them. “There’s about a thousand soldiers on board each of those ships,” she reported with a frown when she opened her eyes again. “Most of them aren’t much more powerful than the ones that Ma—that _Spandam _had. There’s about twenty to thirty per ship that might be more challenging though. Captains, Commanders, and Vice Admirals, I imagine. We’re outnumbered no matter what, but your friends seem strong. They’ll probably be able to hold them off for a little while, at least.”

Robin looked at her curiously. “How can you tell for sure?” she asked, though she didn’t sound doubtful. Only intrigued.

“It’s a skill that we all learned on Starcrest,” Ishu answered. She took a breath. “If we survive, I’ll tell you about it.” And she would. The World Government had obliterated her whole island because of their refusal to share their manpower and skills with outsiders, but Ishu was willing to share that same knowledge with Robin and her crew without them even knowing its true value. The World was her enemy, after all, as it was theirs. Their being stronger could only help her in the end. (Besides, she _owed _them if they survived, and this was the only thing she had left to give.)

Eyes sparkling with an innocent curiosity that belied how her face was bruised and bloodied, Robin smiled at her and nodded her agreement. “Deal,” she chuckled.

“Hey!” Nami called out loud enough that even her crewmates atop the bridge could hear her. “The ship’s ready, we can go as soon as Luffy gets here!”

This good news was immediately overshadowed though, when the deaths of Franky’s friends were then announced over the loudspeakers on the Marine battleships. They were close enough that the words echoed over to them across the water. Ishu wasn’t able to see Franky’s reaction to the news, but her heart clenched painfully in her chest anyways. (They were only a handful of the World Government’s list of victims. She hated that it never got easier to deal with. No matter how many people were killed, it always hurt.) Even here on their escape ship, Nami staggered as if struck, Kokoro and her granddaughter appeared solemn, and Chopper started crying. Ishu could only grab onto his limp hoof (hand?) and squeeze it tightly, hoping that it offered some small comfort.

“He talked about it like it was nothing,” Nami said bitterly as she looked back at the island engulfed in flames with teary eyes. “How can they kill people so easily?”

“They don’t think about it that way,” Robin sighed. She sounded so very tired. “They don’t see any people. To them, it’s just an island on a map that they’ve been sent to erase from the world without any emotion, but you can't see _people _on a map. That’s what a Buster Call is.”

Ishu could only bow her head and try to hold herself together. They waited.

“It’s strange, but I think Luffy always knows, right from the start,” Chopper mused aloud, finally breaking the sounds of distant flames and fighting with his voice. “He can tell who he has to fight if we’re gonna live through it.”

“He’s got instincts just like an animal,” Nami agreed, and shot the little racoon dog a teasing grin. “Even better than yours.”

Chopper didn’t reply right away, and moments after that, the bridge connecting Luffy’s tower to the rest of the Bridge of Hesitation exploded. Even on the ship, Ishu could feel the bridge shudder with the impact. And the Navy battleships swung their way. Everyone aboard the escape ship watched them nervously as they arrayed themselves around them.

Ishu couldn’t help but wonder how they could possibly escape, even on their stolen ship. They were utterly surrounded. She wasn’t given much time to dwell on it though, as the Marine loudspeakers announced their intention to send men down to attack and everyone began to scramble to ready themselves for combat. Nami began spinning a strange-looking bo staff in her hands, and beside her, Robin clenched her fists.

Two hundred elite Captains and Commanders? Well, she couldn’t say she’d won against worse. She’d give it her best shot though.

“I’m scared, Grandma…” Chimney squeaked from off to the right.

Ishu was actually a little surprised that this girl and her rabbit had even made it past CP9 alive; but then again, she knew better than to judge strength based on appearance alone. “Well if we die today, at least it’ll say in our obituaries that it took two hundred elite Captains and Commanders to do it,” Ishu offered.

Though no one else seemed to find the thought especially comforting.

Nami just stared at her for a moment, turned to glance accusingly at Robin, then rolled her eyes skyward with a pained expression. “Gods, there’s _two _of them now,” she muttered to herself before taking a steadying breath and addressing Robin more urgently. “We should get to the bridge. If the ship is damaged in the fight, we can’t escape.”

The woman nodded. “I won’t let them capture me _ever _again,” she growled, crossing her arms in a battle pose.

“I… I can’t move!” Chopper wailed.

Ishu just shot him a sympathetic glance before sidling closer to Robin as the first wave of enemies jumped onto the bridge above and began to rush down the stairs in their direction. Already, she could see and hear Franky’s explosions thinning them out, but even he and the other Straw Hats wouldn’t be able to stop them all, she knew.

“Stay here and guard the boat, Robin-chan,” Nami ordered, already running off. “I’ll try to hold them back!”

Before Ishu could make any motion to follow, Robin placed a restraining hand on her shoulder. “If you don’t like rain or lightning, don’t follow,” she advised. “Let her thin them out a bit before we step in.”

Ishu swallowed nervously, but obeyed. Rain and lightning? What sort of fighting style did the woman have that involved _that? _She’d no desire to have her powers nullified by either of those things though, and decided she’d keep her distance from Nami when she was fighting, just in case. (After witnessing what Nami did to her victims only moments later, Ishu was grateful for Robin’s advice. Nami was so _cool_. Scary! But cool.)

But then a fresh wave of enemies advanced and the reassuring weight of Robin’s hand disappeared from her shoulder. It was time. Moments later, the attacking group of Marines toppled insensate to the ground long before they could reach where Nami was standing, either with their bones and joints horrifically bent out of place or spurting blood with a Paper Star embedded someplace unpleasant.

“Robin!” Nami exclaimed, spinning around with a wide smile.

Robin smiled right back. “You don’t have to worry about protecting me anymore,” she reminded her crewmate lightly. “If my crew is fighting, I’m fighting too.”

It was heartwarming, to see how happy Nami looked after that simple declaration. Ishu supposed it was probably good to hear, after all the things Robin had shouted at her crew before she’d trusted in their ability to rescue her. Of course, there wasn’t time for much more talk before they were once again set upon by fresh Marines.

Nami swung her extremely-cool-but-also-terrifying bo staff around in wide circles as she fought, her strikes very slow but utterly devastating thanks to her ability to electrocute people. Robin, in contrast, was methodical and terrifyingly consistent as she _broke _people left and right with seemingly little effort and absolutely no pause. Ishu gave up on using Flutter for the moment and instead pulled her spirit in as close and small as she could muster and projected her desire to be unseen out several meters in every direction. The ability wouldn’t make her invisible, but it _would _make her remarkably uninteresting. (So in the chaos of battle when she was fighting with such flashy allies, it was nearly as good as.) Effectively hidden, she used the cover to slip up close to the most effective fighters and quickly eliminate them with Paper Cut before they even realized she was there.

A large group then suddenly attempted to rush Robin, who simply smiled serenely and blossomed arms to toss them down the stairs and into a heap, which Nami promptly fried with a Thunderbolt Tempo. (_So _cool.) Feebly, they began pushing back onto their feet. Ishu chose this moment to reappear, feet planted firmly just in front of Nami as she raised both hands up in defense of her battle companions, a wild grin on her face. (After months upon _months _of complete subservience, this… this was _exhilarating._)

“Oh no you don’t,” she barked at the charred Marines. “Special Attack: _Swallow Storm!_” Hundreds of little origami swallows exploded out from her body and converged on the men in a whirlwind. They screamed and tried to bat them away, but her little birds were relentless, resilient, and _ruthless _as they swirled around their victims, dragging their sharp black wings across any exposed skin they could find and deftly dodging fists and swords alike. Swallows took a lot more concentration to animate than did throwing stars, Ishu had found; but the birds were amongst her most dexterous creations and were incredibly difficult to get rid of when they could execute perfect hairpin turns without losing any of their speed or accuracy. Needless to say, the Marines soon went down and _stayed _down after suffering the triple attack from the group of girls they’d assumed to be easy targets.

“Woah,” Nami said breathlessly from behind her as she allowed the birds to drop lifelessly to the ground. “That was brutal. Who are you again?”

“Serin Ishu,” she introduced herself politely. She didn’t think she’d ever get tired of hearing her name again. It was a small, forbidden thrill every time she said it out loud. “Nice to meet you.”

Nami suddenly threw a lightning charge over Ishu’s head. “Likewise!” she shouted back as she rushed off into combat again.

Grinning, Ishu followed.

Unfortunately for them, they were tired. They’d all three of them been fighting all day and were already injured on top of it, while their enemies were fresh and nearly inexhaustible. Ishu found herself drifting closer and closer to where Robin was fighting as her energy began to flag dramatically and she lost her ability to remain hidden or to use Flutter for longer than short bursts. Robin, in turn, drew closer to Nami; and before she knew it Ishu found herself back to back with the both of them as the Marines surrounded them almost completely. She was breathing hard, as were Robin and Nami. Though she could sense that they thankfully weren’t as tired as she herself was just yet.

Instead, she took the opportunity to take a short break and just watched as Robin distracted the men through a few creative shoulder taps and slaps while Nami prepared her cloud and Thunder Bolt. It was easy to see like this, how Robin fit in so well with her crew. She and Nami fought together like they’d been doing it for years, and even as she cringed away from the blinding light and smell of singed flesh, Ishu was glad that this hadn’t been lost today.

“Yeah! Way to go, pirate ladies!” Chimney cheered from the sidelines. Ishu was too busy catching her breath to respond properly, but smiled anyways. Whether the compliment was meant to include her or not, she shared the sentiment. She’d never seen anyone fight quite like Nami and Robin did, but she was definitely impressed.

“We’re okay here, so you just go on upstairs and help those boys out,” Grandma Kokoro called out.

Chimney nodded vigorously. “Your racoon dog will be safe here with us!”

“Okay, we’ll leave Chopper with you. Take care of him!” Nami agreed before glancing at Robin and then down at Ishu. “Ready?” she asked.

“Ready,” Robin agreed, and Ishu could only nod along, steeling herself. She was nearly exhausted, but wasn’t _quite _there yet. She’d almost forgotten what it felt like to feel _strong_, but she remembered now. She could last a little longer, and at this point she trusted that Robin and Nami at least would look out for her if it turned out she couldn’t.

They ran up the stairs.

Almost instantly, they were set upon by enemies. It was a complete mess up here, Ishu observed.

“Careful, some of these guys have devil fruit powers!” Franky warned them as he spotted their approach and shot what appeared to be a severed head into the side of a battleship like it was a cannon ball.

Having reached a somewhat defensible point, Ishu, Nami, and Robin stopped running and spun around to stand their ground. “They could say the same of me,” Robin called back. “Triente Fleur: Clutch!” The Marines chasing them crumpled. (Ishu had never before been able to venture to say that she found the sound of crunching bones satisfying, but… there was a first time for everything, she supposed.) Instead of dwelling on that rather disturbing sentiment, she focused on shooting out Paper Stars where she could around the edges of the Straw Hats’ and Franky’s fights, reluctant to interfere with their rhythm but more than happy to prevent an enemy from attacking from behind.

In this way, she managed to stay active in the fight without getting any injury more severe than a few minor scratches. She stayed back-to-back with Robin and Nami for the most part as they carved out swathes of destruction around them, and kept them from having to worry about any of their enemies trying to sneak past their guard or get up again.

Of course, all of this was interrupted when the side of the support pillar that Straw Hat Luffy and Rob Lucci were still fighting in exploded.

“Luffy!” Robin cried out at the scene. Ishu couldn’t help but watch tensely. It seemed that no one could, and the battle stilled.

Because Rob Lucci –pride of CP9—was defeated. It was nearly unbelievable.

“WE’RE ALL GOING BACK TOGETHER!” the Captain screamed, and even from where they stood, they could all hear it clearly. “ROBIN!”

(Beside her, Robin and Nami both started crying happy tears. Ishu couldn’t help but smile, and she felt _warm._)

“Everybody, head to the escape ship. We’re getting out of here!” Nami cheered.

Cheers emanated from the transponder snail speakers on the Navy ships too. Incredibly, it seemed that Franky’s friends had somehow managed to survive against all odds, and the man was soon crying harder than all of them combined and insisting he hadn’t been worried about them at all.

This news seemed to spur the Marines back into action though, and the fighting resumed with a few resounding shouts and the clash of metal on metal. Unfortunately for them, the Straw Hats and their allies –Ishu included—had been bolstered by these two victories and fought with renewed energy and savagery. Franky was once again all shouts and explosions, Nami started throwing out her biggest Thunderbolt Tempo strikes once more, Roronoa Zoro let loose with a shout of “Oni giri: Phoenix!” that blasted a group of men clean off the side of the bridge and into the churning ocean below, and Robin nearly danced between opponents as they fell beneath her Cien Fleur. Ishu even took on a group of twelve by herself, calling upon Flutter and Paper Cut once more to flash at breakneck speed between them and leaving only streaks of blood and collapsed forms behind her.

But the Marines soon realized that Straw Hat Luffy wasn’t moving and was severely wounded, and the Straw Hats nearly stuttered to a stop when that was announced overhead. Usopp called out to him desperately form his vantage point on the partially destroyed bridge, but the Captain still didn’t appear. Ishu realized with a sinking sensation that even though Straw Hat Luffy was still alive, none of them would be remaining so for long if something wasn’t done.

Nami appeared to have come to the same conclusion. “Usopp!” she cried out over the crackling of electricity. “Let’s get back to the ship, we can take the ship to Luffy! Get moving, everyone!”

Ishu had only just turned to obey when their escape ship exploded. She gasped in horror even as her vision swam with tears that she didn’t have time to shed. Granny Kokoro, Chimney, Gonbe, and Chopper had been on board! Around her, she could hear the others crying out in dismay. She didn’t join them though, too upset to speak.

She nearly collapsed with relief when Sanji suddenly burst from the flames and smoke, the others gathered haphazardly in his arms, somewhat singed but alive nonetheless. She was nearly rendered unable to recover at _all _when she had the misfortune to also witness Grandma Kokoro lose her patience at a Marine who was threatening Nami and kick him over the side of the bridge with one of her webbed feet. She was a frightening woman on more than one level, it seemed.

Ruthlessly, the Marines then began to fire at the bridge, uncaring if they injured or even killed their own men. Bodies, flames, and rubble exploded all around her, and Ishu lost no time in scrambling after the others as they bolted for the relative safety of the next support column on the half-destroyed Bridge of Hesitation. It was a rough go. Being so light, the explosions sent Ishu skidding painfully across the stone of the bridge with nearly every hit, unable to remain on her feet and completely disoriented. After two occasions where she was nearly blasted off the bridge entirely and was only saved due to Robin sprouting a hand or two to hold onto her, Roronoa Zoro took pity on her and grabbed her up neatly under one beefy arm as he ran. Though he dropped Ishu back to her feet nearly the instant that they ran out of bridge to run across in favor of using the arm for his sword, Ishu still managed to wheeze out a “thank you” and received an easy grin in return before he and Sanji leaped up into the air to take care of some large chunks of stone before they fell upon any of the crew or their allies.

By the time the barrage ended, the entire group was left marooned atop the last remaining support column. The bridge itself had been destroyed, and they were utterly penned in by the hulking forms of the Marine battleships that now circled them completely. Nervously, Ishu clenched her fists and mentally prepared herself for more intense fighting in close quarters… but the order never came. Instead, the ships began to prepare to fire on the _first_column, where she knew Straw Hat Luffy was.

“_Luffy!_” Usopp/Sogeking wailed out in despair.

Franky and Roronoa Zoro both swore, and moved to take out the last few Marine survivors that had managed to make it to relative safety alongside them. Seeing this, Ishu stuck closely to Robin and protected her from any stray attackers with a swarm of Paper Stars. If any of them had a chance of reaching Straw Hat Luffy, she reasoned, it was Robin.

Beside her, Robin made a soft, pained noise and grew a few arms out of her own shoulders before letting them dissipate. “It’s no use. At this distance, all I can do is grab him and pull him into the sea,” she lamented.

“Stand up, Straw Hat!” Franky’s friends shouted over the transponder snails.

“Come on, stand up!” Grandma Kokoro.

“Pirate guy, run!” Chimney and her rabbit.

“Luffy, hurry! Move it!” Nami threw in. (She sounded angry, but she looked _scared_.)

“Do something, Luffy!” Sanji called.

“Stand up, Straw Hat!”

“Luffy!”

“You can do it!”

“Straw Hat!”

“Luffy get moving, they’ll kill you!”

“Get on your feet and get out of there!”

Ishu didn’t join in. She didn’t _know _him. But in between her dodges and attacks, she prayed fervently to gods she hadn’t spoken to in _months _that Straw Hat Luffy would listen to his friends –his friends who clearly loved him—and find the strength to save himself.

Except it wasn’t the gods who answered. As one, the Straw Hat crew seemed to react to something only they could hear, leaving only herself, Granny Kokoro, and Franky to defend them for the briefest of moments. “It says to look below!” Chopper yelled from where he was tucked under Grandma Kokoro’s arm.

“What does?” Chimney questioned, waving her arms about frantically.

Chopper never answered. He opened his mouth to do so, but was cut off by Usopp/Sogeking’s sudden shout for them all to jump in the sea. “Robin, can you still throw Luffy into the sea?” he requested.

“Leave it to me.”

“Are you trying to kill us?” Roronoa Zoro snapped, his words slightly muffled by the hilt of the sword he held between his teeth. Ishu –though mostly distracted by directing her newest Swallow Swarm—was inclined to agree with him. She was both a devil fruit user _and _made of paper, and was certainly not fond of water in the slightest.

“We’ll be fine. She came to rescue us!” Usopp/Sogeking insisted, ducking under a Marine’s fist and grabbing ahold of the front of his green-haired crewmate’s shirt. “Just jump, we’ll be okay. We still have one nakama left!”

“Chopper, can you see?” Nami questioned as she electrocuted a man who had just narrowly missed skewering Ishu with a cutlass.

“Yes!”

Apparently, this was all that Robin needed to hear to start with the insane plan of throwing her seriously injured _devil fruit using _Captain into the ocean. “Cien Fleur: Delphinium!” she chanted.

“To the sea!” Sanji cried out.

“To the sea!” the others repeated.

And at this point, Ishu could only accept that they clearly knew something she didn’t. So she followed Robin and Chimney to the edge of the column and _jumped_. Above their falling forms, the support column that Straw Hat Luffy had been lying in mere moments before exploded. Ishu barely paid it any attention. Instead, her gaze was focused on a _miracle_.

A small ship with a ram’s head at the fore. She looked beat to hell, but the symbol of the Straw Hat Pirates billowed proudly on her flag and sails; and here, plummeting to her likely death by drowning, Ishu had never been so happy to see a ship in her entire life. Now that she had a target, she wouldn’t have to take her chances in the ocean.

“Dragonfly!” she cried out. Ishu’s body shape contorted at her command, becoming wider and thinner as she pointed her toes behind her and threw her arms wide open in the air, a set of massive paper dragonfly wings sprouting from her back and beating furiously even as her flattened body slowed her descent long enough for her to create them. She caught the air almost immediately, and was able to turn herself around and glide gracefully down onto the deck of the ship and land neatly on her feet. A series of splashes from off the side told her that the others weren’t so lucky to have such an ability.

Up close, the ship seemed to be in even worse condition than it had from far away. Yet paradoxically, it had somehow made it all the way here from (she assumed) Water 7 in the wake of Aqua Laguna. From the cursory glance around that Ishu afforded, there didn’t appear to be anyone else on board but her and she nearly screamed aloud when a rope ladder unfurled _all by itself _and threw itself over the side. Instead, she could only gawk with the scream caught painfully in her throat until Sanji appeared from where the ladder had landed and dragged himself onto the deck, dripping water. “Thanks, kid,” he gasped.

Ishu shook her head frantically. “It wasn’t me!” she squeaked, looking around wildly for the ghost she was now extremely certain was haunting this ship. Though to be fair, if it _was _a ghost, it had proven to be extremely helpful.

“Huh. That’s weird,” Sanji said as he moved to look around for anyone else on board. Behind him, Nami, Chimney, Gonbe, and Roronoa Zoro’s faces popped up over the railing and they too dropped onto the deck, panting.

“What is it Sanji?” Nami asked the blonde as she wrung some seawater out of her short orange hair.

For her part, Chimney leaped off her perch on Roronoa Zoro’s shoulders and ran to where Ishu was standing, bouncing on her toes. Though Ishu was certain that she was the oldest between the pair of them, they were about the same size and she had to back up a little to avoid the droplets of water that Chimney’s pigtails were spraying with each bounce. “You can _fly? _That’s so cool!” she enthused. “Have you touched a cloud?”

“Nothing’s wrong, it’s just… strange,” Sanji was saying to Nami. “The rope ladder was dropped down, but the kid was the only one here and she said it wasn’t her. It doesn’t seem like anyone else is here.”

“Uh… no. They’re made of water, so that would be a bad idea,” Ishu hesitantly answered the other girl, who seemed disappointed.

“Ishu-chan, did you see who threw over the ladder?” Nami interrupted, sparing Ishu from having to answer more cloud questions.

She shook her head. “No,” she said, her voice high-pitched even by her standards. “That’s just it. It unrolled _itself._”

Nami appeared troubled by this information, but was soon distracted by Usopp/Sogeking flying through the air and landing on the deck in a heap with a shout of the ship’s name. Franky then crawled on board, complaining about the sniper’s inability to swim. Ishu was happy to see him, but suddenly worried about what had become of the others, none of whom could swim at all.

She needn’t have, since they were literally thrown onto the ship a moment later by Granny Kokoro. Straw Hat Luffy landed painfully on his head, Robin was caught gracefully in Franky’s arms, and Chopper plowed straight into Ishu, knocking them both to the deck with a resounding thud. Ishu was a little ashamed to say that she shoved the little racoon dog off of her more roughly than she probably should have; but that had _hurt _dammit, and he’d splashed her with seawater. The wet patches on her skin grew unsettlingly dark as the moisture soaked in, and she made a note to move carefully until she dried out lest she accidentally pull her skin right off her flesh. As a paper person, she was usually more resistant to most mechanical damage than a normal human. (With her powers fully active, it was difficult for even a bullet or blade to make her bleed unless the wounds were very deep.) Water made her heavy and _fragile _though, and she’d been seriously injured this way more than once.

Thankfully, Chopper didn’t even seem to notice the rough treatment and simply wiggled around pathetically on the deck where he’d landed. “We’re back on the Merry!” he sobbed. “I love you, Merry. I love you so much, thank you!” Usopp soon joined him in the emotional outpouring of love and crying. Ishu just carefully sidled away from them both and went to check on Robin, who was standing on her own two feet again but looked rather woozy after her exposure to the ocean.

Ishu certainly didn’t blame her for that. She knew first hand that being in the ocean after having eaten devil fruit was nearly indescribably awful. The sensation was terrifyingly close to the feeling of a slow descent into a peaceful death. “Does this ship belong to you guys?” she asked.

“Yes, the Going Merry,” Robin explained, wringing out her hair to one side and smiling warmly at her. “I’m glad you’re okay.”

(Ishu prevented her eyes from going misty through sheer force of will.) “I’m glad you are too.”

“This doesn’t make any sense,” Franky complained from where he was standing next to them. “I saw this ship drop into the ocean.”

“The question is, who sailed it here?” Nami pondered.

“We can figure it out later, just get us out of here!” Roronoa Zoro instructed her.

The redhead made a short noise of agreement, and she and the swordsman ran to prepare the ship to sail. (She also snapped at Sanji to help her along the way, and Ishu had never heard such awful flirting in her entire short life. Was this a normal occurrence? No one seemed phased.)

Sprawled out on the deck, Straw Hat Luffy gasped for air. He certainly appeared the worse for wear, but so far as Ishu could tell with her inexpert gaze, he didn’t seem to be in any immediate danger of dying. “That was a close one, I thought those ships would blow me up for sure,” he exclaimed. “Hey Robin, you saved me! Tha—”

One of Robin’s blossomed hands clamped his mouth shut before he could finish thanking her. “Luffy, everyone, _thank you_,” she breathed out, her voice thick with emotion and eyes shining with her joy and gratitude as she looked out upon her friends. Her crewmates smiled back at her. Even Ishu couldn’t help but smile shyly when Robin’s gaze fell upon her, despite knowing that no one here really owed her any thanks. If anything, _she _owed _them_. They hadn’t needed to protect her or take her with them, but they’d done it anyways without the slightest bit of hesitation.

Straw Hat Luffy laughed. “Don’t worry about it,” he told Robin sincerely.

“That’s nice, but let’s save this sappy stuff until after we escape, okay?” Roronoa Zoro broke in. Sanji and Chopper immediately set in on him –Chopper miraculously recovering his ability to move just in time to defend Robin’s feelings—and Ishu couldn’t help but laugh at the ridiculous scene the squabbling crewmates made. These people were certainly spirited. She’d never truly understood the meaning of the word nakama before today.

“All right, let’s go. Everyone ready to move?” Nami called out, ignoring the argument.

“Yosh!”

Everyone’s focus was soon diverted towards the warships that were now aiming their cannons at them, and the distant form of Spandam who was still shouting his usual drivel, trying to get the ships to start firing faster.

“Spanda’s still alive, huh?” Franky observed, leaning over the railing of the Merry for a better look even as the Straw Hats bustled around them to obey Nami’s shouted instructions. Of their number, only Robin stood still, blue eyes cold and fixed on Ishu’s former Master.

The cannons fired, and Ishu cringed away from the noise. She was capable of incredible things, but she knew herself well enough to know that at the moment, she was in no shape to stop even one of the incoming missiles.

But miraculously, not a single cannon ball hit the Going Merry. They all either splashed into the waves alongside her, or hit their fellow Navy vessels.

“Wait, are they… firing at each other? Their aim can’t possibly be _that _bad.” Usopp/Sogeking questioned from his place on the forward bow, sounding just as confused as the rest of them all felt.

Above them, two of the massive battleships collided with a thunderous crash. Then seemingly all at once, the rest of the ships listed slowly out of control in the water, slamming into each other as their panicked crews scrambled around on their decks.

“That turned out better than I thought!” Sanji laughed as they all took a moment to gape at the scene. As he revealed that he’d purposely closed the Gates of Justice in order to create this chaos for their escape, Ishu couldn’t help but laugh and bounce in place, somewhat reminiscent of Chimney. That was _brilliant_, and she was amazed that no one else –the unfortunate Marines included—had thought of it. Sanji shot her a playful smile and a wink for her reaction, and Ishu decided that even if he had weird eyebrows and flirted loudly and badly with Nami and Robin, that she liked him.

Roronoa Zoro wasn’t nearly as impressed. “These whirlpools are a problem for us too!” he pointed out.

“It’s not a problem,” Nami announced with an exasperated roll of her eyes. “As long as we’re together, there’s no sea that the Going Merry can’t cross, right?” Her crew shouted their agreement with one voice. “Just hold them off while I find a path for us!”

“No problem!”

It was all Ishu could do to hold on rightly to the railing as the Going Merry picked up speed and the cannons began firing their next round, and she watched in unabashed awe as Roronoa Zoro and Sanji slashed and kicked the cannon balls away from them. Robin caught two that they’d missed in a net of arms she created over the mast, and Franky grabbed them in his big hands and lobbed them right back at the ships that shot them. Usopp/Sogeking shot several of them down with his slingshot; and after that, it seemed to be open season on the Marines as the Straw Hats took turns defending their ship with what Ishu now realized was characteristic fierceness. At one point, the Straw Hats even used their own injured Captain to catch and throw back cannon balls at his own insistence. (Ishu was quickly coming to the conclusion that the man was some kind of insane.) And yet despite how many cannons were firing at the ship, not a single plank on the Going Merry was harmed.

Nami didn’t even appear concerned about the situation in the least as she calmly scribbled in her navigation book, completely unruffled; and before long, she snapped it shut with a satisfied expression and began issuing instructions to Chopper, who had assumed a larger form (He was a zoan fruit user, Ishu realized.) and was manning the rudder. Quickly, they began to move out of range of the cannons.

That’s when Robin made her move. With a veneer of artificial calm, she stepped right past her crewmates, Franky, and Ishu, and took position on the rear deck, facing their enemies. She crossed her arms in a familiar pose. At first, Ishu didn’t understand where she was using her powers, as none of Robin’s body parts blossomed anywhere on the ship that she could see. Following the woman’s gaze though, it soon dawned on her that the figure struggling in her grip on the ship behind them was none other than Spandam. The realization filled her with something that felt curiously like dread, but was nearer to giddy _violence, _and she wasn’t sure she liked the feeling.

And slowly, Spandam began to _bend _in Robin’s hands, shrieking in pain. A part of her thought she should have felt bad for him… but in this moment, looking at him with deadened eyes, all Ishu could think about was the weight of his fists. Of cold nights spent huddled on the damp, freezing basement floor, and of the constant, shooting pains in her stomach that was never allowed to be full. She thought of the sound her fingers and ribs made as they cracked beneath the soles of his boots, and of the bald patches on her scalp where he’d lifted her and dragged her around by the hair. She thought of all the times he’d told her that she was a worthless weakling product of a backwards and useless culture, and of weeks spent frantically doing everything she could possibly think of to please him so that he wouldn’t punish her before she’d finally reached the conclusion that _nothing _she could do would please him, because he’d never punished her for her failures in the first place. That he’d punished her because he _could. _That Spandam just liked to cause pain. Noticing the tight expression on Robin’s face, Ishu also thought of Robin, and of how the woman’s body had jerked and shuddered in agony against her as she’d curled her own body around Ishu’s to shield her from Spandam’s kicks. She thought of how Spandam’s hands had caressed the golden transponder snail so covetously, and of how he’d so carelessly betrayed the thousands of lives entrusted into his care to certain death purely because of his own ambition.

Ishu watched him bend, and Ishu watched him break.

Watching it felt like the moment she’d thrown her collar into the ocean. The brand between her shoulder blades itched.

“All right Franky, it’s time to do your thing!” Nami commanded.

Ishu wasn’t given any time to process, because mere moments later, Franky had released a Coup de Burst and the Going Merry blasted out of the encircling enemy ships and into the air. If she hadn’t already been firmly attached to the railing, she’d have flown right off the ship. Usopp/Sogeking launched a smokescreen to cover their escape, and for a moment, it really did feel like they were soaring through the clouds. Like they were truly flying. The Marines continued to fire even after they landed, but at this point, the cannon balls all fell far afield. They were out of their reach now.

And then, just like that, it was over. The burning island and the listing warships had vanished out of sight, and they were alone and at peace out on the open ocean. Feeling the deck roll under her with each wave was a strange sensation. Ishu had never been on a ship that hadn’t been taking her someplace horrible, and had therefore never had occasion to get as emotionally attached to a ship as it was clear the Straw Hats were to this one. Still, the Going Merry was the first ship she’d set foot on because she _wanted _to, so Ishu supposed that counted for something.

She didn’t quite know what to do with herself now, she realized. She was still breathing hard and felt too alert, as if her body hadn’t quite caught up to her mind and realized that she was _safe _now. The Straw Hats were all celebrating and embracing each other joyfully in the aftermath of their miraculous escape, and she slowly unclenched her hands from where they’d been clutching white-knuckled to the railing of the ship. Ishu didn’t know any of them well enough to engage in a display like that, but she felt… happy, anyways. Almost _indescribably _happy. It was a nearly foreign sensation. Ten months ago, she’d never thought she’d be able to feel happy again, and yet here she was.

Ishu touched the bare skin of her neck with tentative fingertips, almost afraid that she’d be greeted by the cold sea prism she’d been forced to wear for so long; but the only thing she felt was warm, dry skin. It was like waking up from a year-long nightmare.

“Hey, who are you? A mystery person?” Straw Hat Luffy asked, breaking her out of her thoughts and causing her to jump in place, startled. The pirate captain (He looked so much younger than she’d thought he would!) was peering at her curiously and scratching at his head as if trying to remember if her presence here was his fault or not. He still lay prone on the rear deck where his crewmates had dropped him, but didn’t seem to mind the indignity of the position all that much.

“Serin Ishu,” she answered with a slow blink, and approached him tentatively. “You’re Robin-san’s Captain.”

He laughed merrily. “That’s right,” he agreed, looking up at her now as she drew to a stop at his side. “But how’d you get here?”

“I flew.”

“Really?” Luffy gasped, his jaw dropping farther than a normal person’s ever could have. “Waa! _Sugoi ne!_”

“Ishu-chan was Spandam’s prisoner too, and we helped each other,” Robin explained, stepping over to come to her rescue when she noticed how confused Ishu was by the entire conversation. (How was she supposed to _react_to his man?) “She can escape with us now, right?”

“Sure,” the Captain replied easily, digging a finger into his ear before catching sight of Grandma Kokoro and begging her to help him onto the figurehead, seemingly bored of the conversation.

As Robin helped gather Straw Hat Luffy into the old mermaid’s arms, Ishu could only stare at her. The woman was black and blue all over, but she seemed completely calm now. Content. Ishu could still vividly remember the way that Robin had clutched onto her hand with her own despite the awkward angle enforced on them by Robin’s cuffs as she’d tried to run from Spandam, completely unhesitating in trying to take Ishu with her despite there being no real reason to do so. Despite the danger to herself. She could still feel the way that Robin had curled around her to shield her from kicks and bullets alike despite not knowing even so much as her name. And now… Ishu was _free_. Robin had broken both her collar and her Master’s spine, and for the first time in almost a year, she felt like a _person _again.

Completely overwhelmed by the enormity of the gift she was only just now realizing she’d been given, Ishu burst into noisy tears, unable to control herself now that she finally knew she wouldn’t be killed for crying.

“Ishu-chan! What’s wrong?” Robin gasped, shooing Kokoro and Luffy off and kneeling so that she was at Ishu’s eye level. She held onto Ishu’s thin shoulders with hands that Ishu had witnessed literally break a man’s spine in two not five minutes ago, but were now completely gentle and soft. “Are you hurt?”

No, she wasn’t hurt. Just the opposite. Even if she could barely breathe through her snot and tears. “T-Thank you, Robin-san!” Ishu sobbed, body shaking with the power of these new emotions. She didn’t know how else to express the depths of her gratitude. Words seemed inadequate. “Thank you for taking me away from him!”

And then Robin was hugging her, and Ishu could only melt into her embrace and cling tightly to her. Robin was warm and soft and murmuring comforting things into her ear that didn’t seem to do much because Ishu couldn’t stop crying, but it didn’t matter because she was _okay _now. She was safe on this boat with this crew of incredible people, and Spandam wouldn’t be able to hurt her ever again. She didn’t try to move as Robin stood and walked over to where the others were standing at the front of the ship, speaking with Luffy, and Robin didn’t try to make her. (It probably helped that Ishu barely weighed half of what a non-paper human of her size would have.) Instead, she just hid her face in Robin’s shoulder from where she was balanced on her hip. Despite the tears still coursing down her cheeks, Ishu relished in the human contact, and even managed to stop crying and smile as Luffy cheerfully proclaimed the day to be a victory.

Victory. The word rolled around in her head and Ishu savored it like she would’ve a candy. Victory. Even after all the pain and fear and hardship, she’d won more today than she’d ever dared to dream before. She could get used to that feeling.


	2. Memories in Water 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A bit earlier than I estimated, but I had a day off this week and slammed this out in a moment of inspiration. This story is kind of turning into a case study on like... childhood trauma and resiliency more than anything, but what can I say? I'm a psychology nerd.
> 
> (Lots of angst in this one, but it gets better because I've promised you all some serious found family fluff and by god I will deliver.)

Following the completely miraculous escape of the Straw Hat Pirates and their allies from Enies Lobby, Nami set a course back to Water 7 and they were left to sail peacefully over the ocean swells. While Chopper carted his Captain around on his little shoulders as they searched the ship for Usopp –apparently neither had picked up on the fact that Usopp and Sogeking were the same person, which made her giggle to herself behind her hand as she watched them—Ishu chose to stay near Robin, perched on the railing between her and Franky. Even after having been set back down on her feet after her little meltdown in Robin’s arms, Ishu still felt raw and sensitive after the overwhelming nature of the day’s (or rather, night’s, seeing as it was now morning) events and felt safest here. For all that everyone on board had fought and sacrificed for their collective freedom, Ishu still didn’t _know _any of them, and Robin and Franky were probably the closest people she had to friends at the moment.

None of them seemed much inclined to go below decks anyways, and many of the pirates had simply sat down on the deck where they stood and were resting and enjoying each other’s company. They made light conversation amongst themselves about idle topics while Chopper and Luffy wandered around the ship looking for Usopp, and Ishu entertained herself by making matching paper flower crowns for Franky and herself while Robin held Gonbe in her lap and stroked his ears. Franky humored her and suggested a few additions to their crowns with enthusiasm, and Ishu was soon absorbed in creating more and more intricate flowers for them to wear. Still, she couldn’t help but pay attention when the group began debating how the Going Merry could have appeared to them here, and who could have spoken to them on the Bridge of Hesitation.

“Like I said before, it was the Merry’s voice!” Luffy insisted. “Right Merry? Say something!”

“Idiot. There’s no way a ship could talk,” Franky reprimanded. Though the severity of his tone and words were perhaps mitigated by his new outlandish accessory.

From her spot lounging against the mast, Nami sighed. “I kind of felt that way too though...”

“Maybe you have a Klabautermann,” Ishu proposed, tongue poking out in concentration as she worked to match her own crown to Franky’s.

“Eh? What’s a Club-outside-man?” Luffy asked.

Ishu giggled, unable to help herself. Luffy didn’t seem offended though, which comforted her. He was a completely ridiculous person, but he also seemed kind, and she was glad that it was _his _crew she was sailing with at the moment rather than one belonging to the more unscrupulous sort. “A Klabautermann,” she repeated. “A sailor’s legend originating from the Grand Line. I read about them once_. _They’re helpful fairies that appear on a ship that’s well-treated by its crew. Though alternately, you could have a Poltergeist,” Ishu mused with a thoughtful frown. “But that seems unlikely since the Going Merry saved our lives instead of terrorizing the crew into madness and eating all the marrow out of our bones.”

There was a beat of silence where her audience stared at her incredulously before Roronoa Zoro spoke. “Che. Fairy stories,” he scoffed, shaking his head.

“What kind of books are you even reading?” Usopp demanded in a high-pitched voice.

Ishu shrugged. “_Anthology of Ship’s Legends from the New World,_” she answered promptly. “I liked it. The author was a shipwright who was native to Wano. It had a lot of interesting cultural footnotes from all the islands he’d visited on the Grand Line.”

“That sounds fascinating, Ishu-chan,” Robin enthused from her side, eyes shining with what Ishu was beginning to realize was a characteristic academic curiosity. “Perhaps we’ll be able to find a copy of it in Water 7.”

“No need.” Placing her completed flower crown on her head, Ishu squeezed her eyes shut in concentration and pressed the palms of her hands together in front of her chest as if she were praying. When she separated them in a rustle of paper, she held a stack of them in her hands. The topmost page read _Anthology of Ship’s Legends from the New World, by Sato Rosha _in bold text. She carefully handed the coverless book over into Robin’s waiting hands and received a polite thank-you in response. Ishu could tell from her tone that the woman was both surprised and pleased; but whether it was by the gift or the ability itself, she couldn’t say.

On her other side, Franky jerked in place, startled. “Can you do that with any book you’ve read?” he asked her.

“Yes. As long as it’s on paper, I can memorize it by touching it and copy it later.”

“Then that’s why Spandam asked you to take the plans from Franky,” Sanji deduced. “I’d wondered.”

Ishu had almost forgotten that all of them –save for Granny Kokoro, Chimney, and Gonbe—had seen that. “Yes,” she whispered. They must’ve seen the darkness on her face then, as Sanji winced and the conversation moved on from there, with Ishu now stubbornly silent.

Mere moments later however, Luffy suddenly pointed to something approaching on the horizon. “I see a ship coming towards us!”

Everyone scrambled to their feet, bracing for another fight. Thankfully, it turned out that this wasn’t necessary, as the ship belonged to the Galley-La company and was full of men that cheered wildly at their appearance. The occupants of the Going Merry relaxed at the sight, and grinned in recognition.

“Ahoy! Ice pops!” Luffy laughed, waving his arms in the air.

“Baka-berg,” Franky muttered. But Ishu noticed that he too was smiling as Luffy, Chopper, Chimney, and Gonbe danced around the deck.

Celebrations didn’t last long though. With a terrible groan of protesting wood, Ishu suddenly felt the deck beneath her feet lurch in a way that the water beneath them couldn’t have been responsible for, and she was sent flying into Granny Kokoro’s back with Chimney alongside her as the ship split herself nearly in half, with the deck they were all standing on collapsing forwards so that the nose of the figurehead nearly kissed the water. Usopp cried out, but Sanji seemed relatively calm and pointed out that it _had _been declared that the Going Merry could no longer sail.

“Pops, this is bad!” the Captain cried, rushing to the front and calling up to the Galley-la ship that had pulled up alongside them. “Merry is in trouble, please do something, I’m begging you! She’s our friend who’s been traveling with us all this time, and just a bit ago she saved us! So please, pops!”

For all that she’d never met the man, Ishu recognized Iceberg’s face. Spandam had gone to great effort to collect copious amounts of intelligence on him, after all, so Ishu was well aware that if there was anyone in the world who could fix this ship, Iceberg was the person to ask. Still, she didn’t like the grim look on his face that told her that the Straw Hats wouldn’t like his answer.

She was right.

Iceberg regarded them all sternly. “Then let her rest now,” he said, grim.

A beat of silent horror swept over the Going Merry’s crew.

“I’ve already done everything I could,” Iceberg continued, bowing his head. “I’m watching a miracle right now. The miracle of a ship that has long passed its limits. I’ve been a shipwright for many years, but I’ve never seen a pirate ship this incredible. It’s lived a splendid life.”

Slowly, Luffy rose from where he’d fallen to his knees. “Okay,” he finally whispered. All around her, Ishu watched his crew slump, grief flickering over their faces. Even _she _felt badly, well aware that she owed this ship her life. She didn’t want to see her die. But as it stood… she believed Iceberg when he said that the Going Merry wasn’t reparable.

The workers of Galley-La were kind and understanding, and treated the occasion with the solemnity and reverence it merited as they sent over a rowboat for the rest of them to evacuate the Merry with while Luffy stood alone in a smaller boat, with the burning torch they’d provided him with clutched tightly in one hand. The brim of his infamous straw hat shadowed his face enough that Ishu couldn’t say for sure that he was crying, but grief hung heavy in the air all around them that perhaps spoke louder than any amount of tears ever could.

“Well then, are you guys ready?” he asked quietly.

“Yeah.”

Luffy raised the torch. “Merry…” he began. “The seabed is dark and lonesome, so we’ll watch you to the end.” And he touched the flames to the wood. Immediately, the fire caught, and began to spread further onto the wrecked ship. The flames licked over the Merry’s decks, and Luffy’s boat drifted back towards their own and out of danger as they stood vigil. “Thank you for carrying us for such a long time, Merry.” And in that moment, it began to snow. Ishu stared up at the sky, clouds dark against the light from the fire, and flakes drifted down to her face to cling to her eyelashes. It was soft, and strangely beautiful.

That’s when they heard it. All of them, this time. “I’m sorry…” an ethereal and almost childlike voice rang out. Ishu heard it less with her ears and more with her spirit, and nearly jumped out of her skin at the sound. “I wanted to carry you even further. I wanted to continue going on adventures with you forever. But I—"

This seemed to be too much for the more sensitive members of the crew. Several burst into tears, Nami fell to her knees, and Chopper cried out Merry’s name. Ishu could only bow her head and pray that when it was all over, that this miraculously-alive ship could find peace.

“It’s us who should apologize Merry!” Luffy wailed through his own tears. “I’m not good at steering… so I ran you into icebergs at times… There was that time I tore the sails, too. Zoro and Sanji are stupid, so they broke all kinds of things! Usopp would fix them each time, but he wasn’t good at it. So it’s us who have to…” He couldn’t finish, and sank to his knees.

“But I’ve been happy.” Merry’s voice was kind and gentle, and Ishu’s breath caught at her words. On her other side, Chimney reached out and gripped her hand tightly in her own, sniffling loudly. “Thank you very much, for taking good care of me all this time. I really have been happy, because I had you.”

There wasn’t a dry eye amongst them after that.

They stood there, staring at the roaring flames that consumed the Merry, and Ishu couldn’t help but feel the heaviness of the moment. Even if she was only a ship, this crew had obviously loved the Going Merry dearly and they stood vigil over her passing like they would have for a flesh and blood family member. Ishu couldn’t say she felt the same, but she _did _know loss, and found herself hoping in this moment that… that the ones she’d lost had been happy too. That their lives –though short, like Merry’s—had also been happy, and full of love.

In a way, this was the first opportunity she’d ever been given to mourn Starcrest. Her home, her friends, and her family, and everyone she hadn’t known or the things she hadn’t experienced yet were lost to her now just as surely as the Merry was gone now too. Watching the ship burn, Ishu thought of Papa. Of his big hands and loud laugh, and the way he’d rocked her to sleep at night and encouraged her constantly in the daylight hours. She thought of her best friends, Corin and Gana, and the adventures they’d shared together. She thought of her teacher, Guardsman Jayne, and how she’d devoted years of time and energy to mentoring and pushing Ishu past her limits because she’d never lost faith that she’d be able to create and surpass new ones. Ishu thought of the Island Guard, which she’d idolized, and how they’d never minded when she’d make a nuisance of herself underfoot. And she thought of the elderly librarians too, who would let her get away with anything and always searched to find new books that they thought Ishu would enjoy memorizing. Her native language, in which so many of those books had been written, was something that she’d never get to hear spoken out loud again. In the flames licking over the Merry, she saw the flames that had leveled the pale beaches and stunning emerald mountain that was shaped like an eight-pointed star –her island’s namesake—and had swallowed the Island Guard, the library, her teachers, her friends, her culture, and her Papa alike.

Iceburg-san had asked the Strawhat Pirates to let Merry rest. The people of Starcrest hadn’t been tired like Merry was though, and deep inside her, Ishu harbored a rage and hatred towards the people responsible for her home’s destruction that she knew without a doubt would probably consume her one day.

But that day wasn’t today.

So Ishu whispered a quiet goodbye to them all, in her mind. To the people and places that she’d loved, and to the life she would have lived if the World Government hadn’t stepped in and decided that they were too strong for them to exist outside of their control. A goodbye even to the Merry. Papa and the others wouldn’t have wanted Ishu to live a life of fear and hatred, just as they wouldn’t have wanted her to live a life of slavery. Of course Ishu knew now, after everything, that needs must. The day might come when she had the opportunity to take her revenge, just has the day had come when she’d been branded as the property of the World Government.

But the day had also come when she’d been freed.

If Nico Robin could find friends like these, and find a purpose –find _happiness_—couldn’t Ishu do it too one day? Weren’t they the same?

The Going Merry charred down to almost nothing and sank into the ocean, but she would never be truly gone so long as her crew still loved her. (And they surely did love her.) As long as Ishu was here, Starcrest would never be gone either, because she’d never stop loving the home she remembered with her whole heart.

Ishu followed behind the others in silence as they climbed the rope ladders tossed over to them from the Galley-La Company’s ship. “You all look terrible,” Iceberg informed the group bluntly. “Go and get some rest. It’ll be at least four or five hours before we make it back to Water 7. We’ve got an empty cabin with a few bunks you’re welcome to, Straw Hats. Kokoro, Chimney, and Franky can rest in my quarters, and you’re all welcome to eat in the galley if you’re hungry. Bonny will show you the way.”

Bonny turned out to be a nervous boy who nearly fainted when Straw Hat Luffy steamrolled right over him as he ran full-tilt down the stairs and into the ship, shouting “MEAT!” at the top of his lungs. His crew all chuckled fondly at his antics despite their tear-streaked faces and made to follow, most limping slightly.

Ishu did not. Where would she go now? She couldn’t help but ponder this question as she froze in place, not belonging to either of the groups named and not sure what to do or where she was welcome. She was free now, and didn’t have to answer to anyone else ever again if she didn’t choose to but… she had nowhere to go. Nowhere to go back to. What kind of future did she have? What sort of future did she _want_? But Robin took her by the hand and gently tugged her along when Ishu hesitated to follow after them, and she decided that these questions could wait for now. She was too tired to think about it.

Watching Luffy eat was both horrifying and enlightening. Ishu had never seen anything quite like it, but she suddenly had a theory about where the man’s obscene levels of energy came from. Sanji –though visibly as tired as the rest of them—had disappeared into the kitchen almost instantly as they’d settled at the tables in the galley and had emerged only ten minutes later with more food that Ishu had seen at one time in months. She’d been nearly asleep when they’d been served, leaning heavily against Nami’s side as the woman made a fuss over her hands and tried to scrub them clean with a damp rag before they ate. (Nami had nearly screamed when Ishu’s hands had bled under her touch, and hadn’t seemed any less upset when Ishu had explained that this was normal for when she was touched too roughly when her paper skin became wet, and that she didn’t mind this time since it had been an accident. Nami had proceeded with almost heartbreaking gentleness after that, until Ishu’s hands were clean and otherwise undamaged.) She’d stared at Sanji’s offering with wide, disbelieving eyes. This disbelief didn’t dissipate when the food began to vanish rapidly down Luffy’s gullet. Sanji replaced it with more almost as fast as it disappeared, which given Luffy’s speed was _impressive._

Still, she found herself curiously unable to reach out and take any of it for herself even though she _wanted _that food more than anything else right now. (Taking food of her own volition that she hadn’t been explicitly told to was a sure way to earn herself the most severe of punishments, she’d found, and she wasn’t sure what this particular crew’s attitude on food was. Judging by their Captain’s inhuman voracity, Ishu imagined that food was highly prized here and she wasn’t about to risk upsetting these people when she’d seen firsthand how capable they were in a fight.) Robin –who was seated across from her—served her instead once she noticed that Ishu hadn’t done so on her own, spooning some thick stew over plain rice and pushing it across the table to her. “Go slow,” she advised, and Ishu could only nod as she shakily raised the first spoonful to her mouth.

Heaven. The rich flavor practically exploded across her tongue, and she closed her eyes in sheer bliss. Ishu couldn’t remember ever tasting _anything _as good as this.

She took another bite, and another, and then a third without even having finished chewing the last one before her hand was stopped just short of her mouth by an arm that Robin had sprouted right out of the table in front of her. Ishu jerked her head up to face her, alarmed and with her pulse racing; but Robin’s affect remained entirely calm and didn’t so much as flicker at Ishu’s no-doubt terrified expression. “Slowly, Ishu-chan,” she reminded her as the arm vanished in a burst of flower petals as quickly as it had formed.

Relaxing a little when Robin showed no real indication of displeasure, Ishu frowned, but reluctantly nodded her head and lowered her spoon. It was good. _Really _good. She hadn’t tasted beef since… but her stomach was already cramping in protest against the sudden influx of rich food so quickly, and she realized that she’d never keep it down if she wasn’t careful. She’d barely eaten once a day with Spandam, if that, and never food like _this. _Her body wasn’t ready to eat like she wanted to yet, and she realized that Robin probably had enough experience with going hungry to try and spare her from the unpleasant results of indulging too much too quickly.

She hadn’t been angry at all.

Her next bite she took in slowly, and she counted to twenty in her head while she chewed. Seeing this, Robin gave her a warm smile before returning her attention to her own meal and leaving Ishu to continue unmolested now that she was exercising more self-control. Ishu couldn’t even finish half of her bowl before she began feeling uncomfortably full, and she forced herself to stop eating, gazing forlornly at the food that was going to waste. A small seed of anxiety began to tighten in her chest at the thought.

“Aren’t you hungry? You can eat as much as you like, you know,” Nami commented from beside her, frowning at the unfinished food.

Ishu tensed further. “I know,” she said in a small voice. She hadn’t actually, but it was still nice to hear.

A small box was placed on the table next to her trembling hand, and Ishu followed the attached arm up to look at Sanji. He had a lit cigarette held loosely in the corner of his mouth, but was looking at her intensely with his one visible eye. “Pirate lunch box,” he explained.

Ishu blinked. “Pirate lunch box?” she repeated, confused. She spoke Common very well. She knew what the words meant, but she still had no idea what he was talking about.

Sanji flipped open the lid partway, revealing that the little package was stuffed full with sliced raw fruits, before closing it again. “Snacks. Keep it with you and eat when you’re hungry,” he instructed her, his expression strangely knowing. “We’ll eat again after we get to Water 7, but it doesn’t hurt to be prepared; and if you ever feel hungry, come see me and I’ll give you something. You’ll regret it later if you force yourself though.”

Clutching the pirate lunch box close to her chest and staring up at Sanji, Ishu could’ve cried. How many nights had she gone to bed hungry? How many times had the cooks in Enies Lobby switched the bottoms of her feet for stealing? And here this man was, not only giving her a pirate lunch box, but his word that it wouldn’t happen again here. “Okay,” she sniffled, her voice wobbly.

Seemingly satisfied with her response, Sanji nodded once and hurried away back into the kitchen.

“Are you finished?” Robin asked, interrupting the overwhelmed feeling that was once again creeping up Ishu’s spine in response to having yet another act of immense kindness bestowed upon her today.

“Yes,” Ishu forced out after taking a deep breath. She watched as Robin handed the bowl off in Luffy’s direction where it disappeared in the fray nearly instantly. Part of her wanted to viciously defend that bowl. It was _hers_. But her mind told her that these people weren’t like everyone else she’d met since leaving Starcrest. Sanji had promised that she wouldn’t go hungry so long as she was with them, and she believed him. She _did. _It was just… hard. Though at least nothing had gone to waste, she mused, eyeing the Straw Hats’ Captain with undisguised fascination. How did that all even _fit? _It must’ve been his devil fruit.

“Here, try this,” Nami said, sliding a cup of what smelled like apple juice in front of her with a smile that seemed slightly forced. Though Ishu couldn’t say for sure, since she really didn’t know the woman. “You could probably use the sugar after the day we’ve had.”

Obediently, Ishu took a drink and closed her eyes in pleasure at the taste. It was tempting to gulp it down as fast as she could, but her meal still sat heavily in her stomach as a reminder that this probably wouldn’t be a good idea. Instead, she sipped the juice slowly and kept a close watch on her rowdy tablemates as the meal finally started to slow down and Sanji eventually joined them with his own plate. Each and every one of them looked dirty and tired; and with the exceptions of Granny Kokoro, Chimney, and Gonbe they were all visibly injured as well. This seemed to be Chopper’s cue, since he left the room briefly then, only to return with a bulging medical bag.

“I’ll patch up the big stuff now, but we need sleep more than anything so I’ll wait to do more thorough examinations until Water 7,” the little reindeer (_not _a racoon dog, Ishu had been informed) announced to the table at large. “Tell me about broken bones and anything that needs cleaning or stitches now, please.”

The doctor was quick. Ishu had read a lot of medical texts out of sheer curiosity, but she didn’t fully understand most of them since the language in medical texts tended to be so formal and academic. Still, she knew enough of the basics after having tended to her own injuries for so long to have some awareness of how talented a doctor that Chopper must be to tend to his nakama so skillfully and so fast. They all sported a series of deep slices and punctures that needed cleaning and stiches, and there were a few broken fingers, toes, and ribs thrown into the mix as well. Both Robin and Ishu had needed their ribs wrapped too since a few had cracked –probably from being thrown down the stairs or kicked—so Chopper had taken them into the pantry for some privacy when he asked them to pull their shirts up, since they were girls.

“What’s this?” Chopper had asked Ishu innocently as he’d set about palpating her ribs to make sure they really were only cracked and not broken, gesturing to the symbol of the Celestial Dragons that had been branded across her back, leaving the skin discolored and slightly raised in a pattern that was vaguely reminiscent of a claw or an eye. (Though she hadn't been the personal property of a Celestial Dragon, there wasn't any other legal way to designate a person a slave.)

Helplessly, Ishu clenched her fists. She’d have pulled away if she weren’t afraid of hurting Chopper’s feelings. (He seemed… both young and old. It was confusing. But as Nami had cheerful explained during their meal, Chopper wasn’t a human, but a reindeer that had eaten the human-human fruit. She wasn’t sure what age that made him, but he seemed rather childlike and sweet to her most of the time. Then again, so did Luffy.) “I’m a slave,” she told him shortly, her voice gone flat. “It’s how you tell I’m not a person.”

Chopper didn’t say anything after that, his eyes big and watery but determinedly not crying. Ishu appreciated that. From where she’d been standing and waiting for him to finish with Ishu, Robin clenched her jaw hard enough that Ishu could see the muscles in her face jump when she’d done so. She refrained from commenting however, and Ishu was glad for that as well. She didn’t want to talk about the permanent scars left on her from her ordeal just yet, and even though she knew that Robin wasn’t mad at _her _(most likely), seeing any sort of anger coming from another person made Ishu extremely nervous regardless.

She was dazed enough by the conversation that she followed Robin back into the galley mechanically, and didn’t really register much of her surroundings beyond noting that Chopper had done a good job with her ribs until someone had tracked down Bonny to lead them to the promised cabin and they’d all filed inside. Ishu wasn’t a great judge of ships, but she decided that this was probably a moderately large room. It fit three bunk beds and three chests of drawers –one set against each wall—and everything in the room smelled pleasantly of lacquered wood.

“Boys, boys, girls,” Roronoa Zoro declared shortly, pointing to each set of beds in turn with finality before collapsing face-down onto the nearest mattress and letting out an embarrassingly loud snore. Sanji stepped on the back of his head as he climbed onto the bunk above him, but the swordsman didn’t wake up or even stir. Luffy, Usopp, and Chopper followed their lead, with Luffy claiming the top bunk of the next bed from himself and Chopper and Usopp curling up together on the bottom. All three were unconscious almost as fast as Zoro.

“Come on,” Robin murmured as she walked over to the last bed and started pulling down the sheets on the bottom bunk. “We can share.” She gracefully dodged a falling shoe that Nami discarded from above her without even blinking.

And Ishu… was hesitant. “I can sleep on the floor, Robin-san. I’m—” She stopped herself before she could say that she was used to it. It didn’t matter if she was used to it or not. She wasn’t a slave anymore, Ishu sternly reminded herself. She was a _person_, and people got to sleep in beds.

Robin seemed to agree. “If you’re uncomfortable sharing, I’ll sleep on top with Nami,” she said mildly. “She won’t mind.”

Personally, Ishu rather thought she _would _mind. Sharing with someone of hers or Chopper’s size was one thing, but these bunks clearly hadn’t been made with more than one adult occupant in mind. Still, she appreciated Robin’s consideration, and she doubted that Nami would say anything. She reminded herself sternly this wasn’t the conditioning camp where the instructors or Masters would come to the slaves in the night and hurt them just to teach them that no hour of the day or night was safe. This wasn’t her first Master’s ship, where the quartermaster would whip her if he discovered her sleeping when he felt she should be working. (Which was _always._) This wasn’t Enies Lobby, where Spandam would send Marines to kick her awake from her basement corner at odd hours of the night because he was a chronic insomniac and got bored if he didn’t have someone to monologue to or torment. Robin was the person who had shielded Ishu with her own body multiple times today. Robin wouldn’t let anything happen to her while she was sleeping.

“No, it’s okay. We can share,” Ishu decided, bending down to place her pirate lunch box carefully under the bed where it wouldn’t get stepped on. Not only did it contain food, which was valuable in and of itself, it was also literally the only thing she owned besides the threadbare grey shorts and shirt she was wearing. She didn’t even have shoes. She’d be terribly upset if she lost it.

Robin just nodded tiredly, pulled off her tall boots, and crawled into the bed. She scooted up closely against the wall so that Ishu would have room to lay down too, and sleepily held up the sheets for her. Carefully, Ishu scooted onto the mattress next to her and nearly melted when she settled down onto the soft surface and Robin let the blanket fall back down on top of them. She’d nearly forgotten what it felt like to feel so warm and soft and _safe. _And she was bone-tired after the events of the night. The steady rhythm of Robin’s breathing was surprisingly soothing, and despite her initial misgivings, Ishu fell asleep almost instantly.

She didn’t wake until several people up above them on the deck of the ship began shouting that they were approaching Water 7. At first, Ishu was completely disoriented and more than a little terrified. Where was she? She was in a _bed _(snuggled up to another person, no less)so she surely wasn’t where she was supposed to be! But then Robin shifted beside her, her dark hair falling onto Ishu’s face to tickle her nose, and it all came back in a rush.

Cutty Flam and Nico Robin, the Buster Call, the Going Merry, and _freedom_.

Unable to help herself, Ishu smiled widely as she scrubbed the sleep out of her eyes and sat up. Zoro and Nami were both gone, but Sanji was awake and in the process of tying an unconscious Luffy’s rubber arms around his torso so he could wear his Captain like a backpack. “Good, you’re awake,” he greeted her. “We’ll be docking soon. Galley-La has offered to put us up for a while, while we try to find a new ship. Let’s get everyone moved over there, and you can go back to sleep then if you want to.”

Somewhat surprised by the offer but not ungrateful, Ishu hesitantly nodded before turning and gently nudging Robin’s shoulder. She looked peaceful, asleep. More so than Ishu had ever seen her awake. But Sanji was already waking Usopp and Chopper, so it was time for them to go.

“We’re here, Robin-san,” Ishu offered when Robin’s blue eyes opened near instantly at her touch and blinked at her twice as she returned to consciousness. “Sanji-san says Galley-La found us a place to stay on Water 7.”

Robin hummed in acknowledgement, and Ishu quickly scooted out of the bunk to give her room to sit up. In seemingly no time at all, they found themselves back outside on the deck, and Ishu couldn’t help but gape at her first view of Water 7. It was _beautiful_, like a gigantic fountain, and Franky even swung her up onto his shoulders so she could take a better look. He brightly pointed out and named all the districts that they could see from their angle of approach, and had a wild story about something he or one of his friends had done in each place. Ishu listened attentively as she clutched his forehead for balance, enraptured. She wasn’t sure everything Franky was telling her was strictly _true, _but he was a funny person and she couldn’t help but giggle at his dramatic retellings.

Soon enough though, they all needed to say their goodbyes. It was unexpectedly painful for Ishu to watch Franky split off from the group once they’d docked, and her eyes swam as he playfully ruffled her hair and set her back down on her feet. “Don’t sweat it kid, I’ll be around,” he assured her. “I’ve got to go check on my friends. They fought super-hard at Enies Lobby, so I need to go see if they’re okay. I know where you’re staying though, so I’ll come see you guys soon.”

Granny Kokoro, Chimney, and Gonbe had left too. They were staying with Iceberg, but had promised to visit them as well, as soon as they woke up from the long nap they were planning to take. Chimney had even hugged Ishu goodbye, squeezing her tightly in her enthusiasm and telling her that they’d play soon. Ishu hadn’t been quite sure how to react to that, but had returned the embrace as best she could anyways. Chimney reminded her a little of her old friend Gana with all her manic energy, and she couldn’t help but like her despite not really knowing her.

Usopp slipped away from them without any goodbyes at all. Ishu didn’t understand why the others hadn’t said anything. Nami and Chopper had appeared positively gutted watching him go, and Zoro and Sanji upset but stoic. It wasn’t her place to ask about it though, since she wasn’t one of them. And so she said nothing.

The Galley-La company had provided the Straw Hats with a little house tucked away inside their headquarters at Dock #1 that they were told they could stay in while they recovered and looked for another ship, and it was all they could do to avoid the excited paparazzi that had surged towards the group upon their return. Thankfully, Iceberg was kind enough to distract their attention with a short speech, and the rest of them were able to follow Bonny to their new temporary residence without much hassle. It was a simple place, but clean, with two rooms: a bathroom, and a large common space for them to spend time in together. The big room contained both a kitchen and dining space, as well as three bunk beds lined up on the far wall. After dumping Luffy on the bed closest to the door, Sanji gravitated towards the kitchen the moment they stepped inside, no doubt to assess how well it had been stocked by the Galley-La workers. Nami stuck her head into all the closets for the same reason, since they’d been informed that the rooms had been stocked with some clean clothes and basic toiletries. Zoro gave them all a casual wave and strolled right into the bathroom for a shower, and Chopper herded both Robin and Ishu off to the side for medical treatment.

“Besides Luffy, you two were injured the most,” he explained when Ishu timidly suggested that he should tend to his crewmates before he spent time on her. “He’s a monster, so all he usually needs to heal up is a lot of food and sleep. I’ll check him over later.”

Perhaps sensing how nervous Ishu was, Robin graciously volunteered to go first. While Ishu sat to the side and watched, nibbling on some apple slices from her pirate lunchbox, Chopper checked Robin over thoroughly; cleaning all of the small cuts and scrapes she’d accumulated and looking for more serious damage in the places where her bruises had now deepened into an angry purple. Her right eye had mostly swollen shut, and Chopper was a little concerned about the extent of the bruising on her stomach where stupid Funkfreed had slammed into her. Robin assured him that aside from a few cracked ribs, she didn’t think that she had been damaged too much internally by the blow. Chopper accepted her word, though not without pressing some painkillers into her hands and warning her to come to him if she began to feel any symptoms of internal bleeding.

Then it was Ishu’s turn. She disrobed self-consciously, very aware of the way her ribs and spine stood out far too prominently and of how –despite the darker tone of her skin as compared to Robin’s—she too was visibly bruised in shapes that made it clear that her injuries were caused by hands and feet. Unlike Robin however, Ishu’s bruises were mottled over each other in various stages of healing. Some were old and yellowing, while others still blared a fresh angry red and purple, and she was covered in raised welts and scrapes from where she’d taken blows from a belt or cord. She bore many older scars too, especially around her neck where her collar had once sat, on her back, and on the bottoms of her feet. Seeing them upset Chopper, Ishu could tell. But he didn’t ask about them this time, and kept his other questions short and professional while he once again cleaned the open wounds and checked her ribs. She too received a dose of painkillers, and the same instructions as Robin.

Softly, she thanked him for taking such good care of her, and the little reindeer danced happily in place and called her an idiot. Chopper let them go after that, wandering over to the boys and muttering to himself about talking to Sanji about calorie-dense snacks.

Robin just smiled fondly after him before taking Ishu’s hand and tugging her gently to her feet. “Let’s go get Nami so we can all take a bath once swordsman-san is finished,” she suggested. “It will help with the soreness, and Nami-chan can save us from drowning if we get too tired.”

Swallowing nervously, Ishu allowed herself to be led over to where Nami was lounging on the couch. A bath was a good idea. Lords knew she was filthy, after having been tossed around a battlefield and not having been washed before that in nearly two weeks. And she _was _sore. She couldn’t help the crawling sensation of fear though. Water was the one thing that put her at her most vulnerable, and baths had usually just been excuses for people to hurt her in the past. Perhaps not even intentionally, but she was paper on the outside. She was _fragile _in water, and often had her skin scrubbed away if someone had been assigned to wash her and they weren’t feeling considerate enough to take care with her. Even if she were allowed to wash herself, she was still vulnerable for some time afterwards too until she fully dried, and _that _had never turned out well for her.

Papa used to help her in the bath back home, always worried for her after she’d eaten her devil fruit. He’d never hurt her even once. She’d enjoyed her baths, then. Ishu had learned more about the world now though, and had made it a habit to avoid water at all costs these past few months. Still, she’d done well by trusting in the Straw Hats so far, and she didn’t really believe that Nami or Robin would intentionally hurt her either. Especially since Nami had washed her hands just this morning even, and had taken such great care to be gentle once she realized how easily she could be hurt. With how tired and injured she was, Ishu knew that it would be safer for her in the water if someone else was there with her to pull her out if need be.

For these reasons, despite the way she’d begun to tremble, Ishu kept her fears to herself and followed Robin and Nami into the newly-vacated bathroom wordlessly. All three of them undressed, and while Robin began running hot water for the bath –that was thankfully very large, enough for them to share without being cramped—Nami walked over to Ishu and ran a critical hand over the dark brown tangles of her hair. She hesitated when Ishu flinched, but resumed her inspection after watching her face carefully and when Ishu didn’t pull away from her touch.

(Nami wasn’t mean, Ishu chanted to herself. She wasn’t going to pull her hair.)

Nami clicked her tongue disapprovingly at what she found. “It’ll take some work for us to save this, Ishu-chan,” she said with a frown. Ishu’s hair was long, but matted with dirt and blood and hopelessly tangled. (It’s not as if Spandam had given her a comb to use.) “We may have to cut some off.”

“Cut it _all _off. I don’t want it,” Ishu replied immediately. She’d always kept her hair long before, but the only thing it had been proven good for was for other people to use it as a weapon against her. She never wanted to be dragged around by her hair again.

Rustling around in the vanity drawer, Robin left the tap running and produced a pair of scissors from her search, which she passed over to Nami. “Let’s leave it just long enough that you’ll still be able to pull it back out of your face,” Robin suggested. “It’s more practical that way, but there’s no need to wash the rest of it now if we’re just cutting it off later anyways.”

Though she still wore a small frown, Nami acquiesced easily enough and snipped Ishu’s hair away at the base of her skull with such speed and precision that she didn’t even have time to react to the feeling of cold metal against the back of her neck. “We’ll even it out later,” she assured her as Ishu explored the back of her head (It was so much lighter!) with hesitant fingers.

The room had filled with soft billows of steam by now, and the three of them climbed into the bath, hissing when the hot water hit their still-healing wounds. Nami didn’t look as bad off as Robin and Ishu did, she noted, but she imagined she was still in considerable pain. She had long bruises that looped around her arms and legs like ropes, and Ishu realized that Nami must have had a run-in with Kumadori and his weird hair at some point. Still, the stinging passed, and Ishu soon relaxed as they soaked in the soothing heat. Though it wasn’t seawater, she was still submerged up to her collarbone and it was making her sleepy. She had enough awareness to wash her own body though, and even felt comfortable enough to let Nami (with what seemed to be uncharacteristic levels hesitance and carefulness) wash her back for her while Robin massaged soap into her scalp and combed conditioner through her now-short hair.

Nami hummed to herself while they bathed, and though Ishu wasn’t familiar with the song, Robin clearly was and occasionally joined in. She made a point to tickle at Ishu’s sides whenever she noticed her drifting off, and Nami used the bubbles to give herself and Ishu matching beards. Sometime in between fits of giggles, Ishu suddenly realized that she was having _fun. _That these women hadn’t hurt her even once, and had in fact gone out of their way to be kind and make sure she felt comfortable here. Both surprised and moved, she paused from where she’d been attempting to put a bubble beard on Robin too and gave them both a radiant smile.

“Stop that, you’re so cute!” Nami cooed at her, squashing her in a hug. Ishu squawked and pinwheeled her arms, and Robin only laughed at them until Ishu accidentally splashed bathwater into her face. This had ignited a three-sided splash war that resulted in soap and puddles being launched all over the bathroom, and they didn’t get out of the tub until the water crew cold.

It was a good thing they’d brought Nami along, since it was Nami who had to haul Ishu out of the water. (As always, it felt like her limbs had gone heavy and soft enough that her bones couldn’t support her own body weight anymore. Though she wasn’t sure if that was a devil fruit thing, or a paper thing. Perhaps both.) Nami even had to help Robin, who’d stumbled as she stood and nearly toppled out of the tub headfirst. From the way she’d pursed her lips as she held Robin firmly by the forearms as she tried again, Ishu guessed that this wasn’t normally necessary and that Nami wasn’t happy with the pain and exhaustion that her friend was emanating at the moment; but there wasn’t really anything more that Nami could do for them at the moment besides what she already was, and so chose not to comment aloud. Thankfully, both devil fruit users were able to leave the tub without further injury thanks to her help.

Nami then proceeded to practically smother her as she wrapped her in a huge fluffy towel, and Ishu was sat smartly on the stool in front of the vanity while the navigator stood behind her in her own towel and snipped away at her hair with the scissors again, truly clean for the first time in months. Robin had sprouted arms all over the room to clean up after their mess, and was getting dressed in a set of the new clothes that had been left in the house for them to wear. They were all Galley-La brand, of course, but Robin didn’t seem to mind. Ishu certainly wasn’t going to complain.

“There. Done,” Nami announced with a decisive nod and taking a step back to admire her work. “What do you think, Ishu-chan?”

Ishu leaned forwards and wiped the fog off the mirror with a corner of her towel, and blinked at her reflection. She hadn’t seen herself since she’d been taken, and was momentarily taken aback by how _tiny _she looked. She remembered herself being bigger. Now, her skin looked sallow and her face and arms dangerously thin. It made her eyes –a warm honey brown—look far too big for her face, even with the bruises and fat lip she currently sported. She liked her hair though. Previously, it had trailed all the way down to the small of her back, but it now curled short and dark around her ears. The style looked a lot like Nami’s actually.

She smiled at her reflection. “It’s perfect! Thank you, Nami-san,” she chirped.

“Oh, it looks like there was a little girl under all that dirt after all,” Robin teased from behind her. She gently pinched her cheek, and laughed lightly when Ishu scowled at her and batted her hand away. “Here, try these on,” she said, handing over a fresh set of clothes as a peace offering. “They’re too big, but we can find you something else later.”

Carefully, Ishu accepted the bundle, stroking over the material with her hands. They were simple clothes –just a t-shirt and shorts that were clearly meant for an adult woman as opposed to a child—but clean and soft. Better than what she’d had anyways, and she lost no time in putting them on. She’d had to roll the waist of the shorts several times for them to stay up, and they still threated to fall off at any moment if she moved too suddenly. Thankfully, the shirt was long enough that it hung over one shoulder and was nearly a dress on her anyways, so Ishu wasn’t too worried about it. Nami dressed as well, though her clothes actually seemed to fit.

“Are you hungry, Ishu?” Robin added as they finally left the bathroom after brushing their teeth, re-entering the main living space. “I think Sanji-kun made some snacks for us.”

“Robin-chwaaan! I did!” Sanji exclaimed, seemingly materializing out of nowhere wearing a dopey expression. Ishu wrinkled her nose in confusion and disgust as he made adoring faces at Robin and Nami. “You and Nami-swan were complete angels of the battlefield and deserve something nice to restore your energy! Imouto-san is welcome to have some as well!” He ushered them to the table and presented them with a platter full to bursting with what appeared to be little tea sandwiches.

Both Nami and Robin thanked him before taking one, so Ishu quietly did the same and took a small bite despite not feeling particularly hungry after having eaten the fruit out of her pirate lunch box. She wasn’t familiar with this flavor; but whatever it was, it was incredible. She ate three of them before she had to stop, but Sanji packed all of the leftovers into her empty pirate lunch box and handed it back to her with a wink. She couldn’t help but smile at him brightly for that.

The next day and a half was spent in recovery. Ishu slept through most of it. Despite feeling more energetic than ever now that she wasn’t wearing any sea prism, her body seemed to have finally caught up with her mind and realized that she was safe and not expected to work here. (She’d been scolded and sent back to bed every time one of the Straw Hats had caught her trying to clean anything.) The inactivity made her uneasy at first. She’d spent _hours _nearly jumping out of her skin at every little noise or unexpected motion, and had tried desperately to observe the pirates closely enough that she might figure out some way to make herself useful so that she wouldn’t get sent away –or worse, _punished_. Nami and Sanji had eventually lost patience with this behavior and sat her down to make it clear that Ishu, as their friend and guest, was only expected to rest and heal; and after getting some medical attention, some sleep, and a few solid meals, Ishu’s energy had crashed and she slept nearly a solid fourteen hours curled up against an equally tired Robin in their bunk.

Sanji didn’t seem to sleep much, but was always fluttering about somewhere in the kitchen or shipyard, puffing away on a cigarette. When he wasn’t acting stupid around Robin and Nami, Ishu enjoyed being around him. He was smart, and very witty. He pretended to be grumpy a lot, but for the most part kept good humor and seemed to _always _know when somebody started feeling hungry. In contrast, Roronoa Zoro wasn’t around all that often at all, which Ishu was informed by everyone but Chopper was probably because he kept getting lost while exploring the city. He was a calm and steady presence when he was there though, and even though he and Sanji fought a lot, Ishu noticed that he often went out of his way to make things easier on his nakama even when they didn’t notice or appreciate it.

On their second day since arriving on Water 7, Chopper, Ishu, and Robin went out too, so that the little doctor could visit the Franky Family and give them some checkups. Nami stayed behind though, moping about having lost all of their money and possessions in Aqua Laguna, and Sanji and Luffy stayed with her. Sanji because he was ridiculous, and Luffy because he hadn’t woken up even once since they’d gotten there. (Not even to eat! Because apparently, he could do that just fine even while sleeping, the weirdo.) As they moved through Water 7, both Chopper and Ishu stuck closely to Robin’s side. Chopper out of a fear that his crewmate would suddenly vanish again, and Ishu out of a fear that if she let either of the Straw Hats out of her sight even for a moment, that they’d abandon her here.

It wasn’t exactly a rational fear. She knew that she likely wouldn’t have to worry about being on her own again until the pirates managed to buy another ship, since they’d seemed perfectly happy to let her stay with them so far without expecting anything in return. She also knew that they were in no way obligated to keep her around though, and her continuing presence with them had never been something they’d discussed with or in front of her, if at all. Then there was the fact that even if Ishu had now recovered enough that she thought she’d be fine on her own… she _liked _the Straw Hats. They were her friends, and they made her feel safe and happy for the first time since she’d lost her whole world, and even the mere thought of losing that made her chest hurt. (She didn’t want to lose anyone else ever again.)

It was nice to see a little of the island though. The city had clearly been severely storm-damaged, but everyone they met was friendly and happy to see them; and since Zoro had brought Ishu a pair of sandals of her very own that morning, she could walk freely with the other two without hurting her feet! She found herself asking questions about everything she saw. Chopper and Robin were happy to answer her when they could, and were absolutely delighted whenever she could contribute something to the conversation that they hadn’t known, by virtue of all the information on the place that she’d stored in her impeccable memory. The pair of them were very intelligent, she’d found. (Though as an archeologist and doctor respectively, that was probably something that came along with the field.) It was nice talking to them. They reminded her of the librarians on Starcrest.

When they arrived at their destination, the Franky Family greeted them all with a loud sort of enthusiasm that Ishu had previously only associated with Franky himself. (He’d gone to visit Iceberg, they were told. Ishu was disappointed to have missed him.) They were rather startling to interact with; but after she got used to it, their overwhelming positive energy wasn’t unwelcome. She was fascinated to meet Chopper’s friends Sodom and Gamora –never having met a yagara before and certainly not ones so big!—and even helped a little with the Franky Family’s construction efforts by flying some supplies up to the top level of the building they were working on.

They’d eventually said their goodbyes after about two hours though, and walked back to the shipyard together, stopping briefly for some groceries on the way since Robin and Chopper were certain that Luffy will have eaten the last of the food by the time they returned. Ishu didn’t mind the detour. She was practically skipping as she walked, latched on to Robin’s hand and marveling at being able to move around freely amongst people who smiled warmly at her as she passed instead of sneering. She felt like an entirely new person to the one she’d been a week ago, and even a year ago; but the warm sun on her face and the lack of hunger pains in her stomach and the smell of the sea on the air told her now that no matter what happened next… things would be okay. _She _would be okay.

Ishu hadn’t felt that way in a long time. It made her nearly giddy.

When they finally arrived back at the house, they found Nami hugging a tangerine tree. Granny Kokoro, Chimney, and Gonbe were there too, and there was a giant frog peeking into their window that nobody seemed to be concerned about for some reason. “Hey, we’re back!” Chopper announced. Sanji twirled over in an instant and relieved Robin of the bag she’d been carrying. “We went to check on the Franky guys’ injuries, and we didn’t take our eyes off Robin!” Chopper reported to the blonde man with an adorable salute, and Ishu copied him while she struggled to keep a straight face.

Sanji saluted them right back. “Well done!” he praised them.

“I told you, I’m not going anywhere!” Robin laughed, putting an affectionate hand on Chopper’s head.

“That’s a promise, right?” Chopper insisted, looking up at her with big eyes.

“Yes, it’s a promise.”

“Guys, look at this!” Nami squealed from between the branches of the tree, sounding more excited than Ishu had ever heard her. “The tangerine trees were okay! We got everything back, including our money and belongings! Now we can continue our journey!”

Chopper rushed over to her to hug her legs. “Yes! I’m so glad!” he cheered.

Though she smiled to see them so happy, Ishu’s heart dropped a little at the announcement. She’d be all alone again sooner rather than later, it seemed.

The front doors burst open again before anyone could notice Ishu’s strained expression, and she jumped at the intrusion, spinning around with clenched fists only to be greeted with the sight of Franky, Kiwi, and Mozu’s bottoms thrust out at them as they all struck a pose in greeting. “Yow! Are you guys doing super? Everyone—” Franky paused and surveyed the room with a little pout. “…isn’t here. But that’s okay.”

“Franky!” Ishu cheered, jumping right over to him and not even objecting when he swung her up into his arms in greeting, merely throwing her arms around his neck for balance. He was a stupid and ridiculous person, but she’d missed him more than she’d realized. Certainly he was very big and she _should _have been afraid of him… but something about his flamboyant attitude put her at ease. Especially here, amongst people that she was increasingly certain would protect her if something were to happen.

Smiling winningly at her, Franky held her up with one arm and used the other to ruffle her now-short hair. “New ‘do? Looking super, kid!” he complimented her.

“What brings you here all of a sudden, Franky?” Sanji asked, though not unkindly.

Lifting up his sunglasses with a finger, Franky grew serious. “I’ve got something important to discuss with you.” He put Ishu back down on her feet, took a seat right there on the floor, and then proceeded to explain the legend of the Adam tree to the room, revealing that this was what he’d purchased with the 200 million beri he’d stolen from the Straw Hat pirates. (This new information to Ishu. She’d known that the Franky Family had started out as their enemies, but hadn’t realized that he’d stolen so _much _money from them!) He finished his story with the revelation that it was his dream to build a dream ship for nothing less than the King of the Pirates, and that he wanted to build this ship for the Straw Hats.

“What?” the pirates all murmured, stunned.

Luffy let out a particularly loud snore.

They then burst into started and grateful exclamations, and Ishu was glad to see how happy and touched they were to receive such a gift from Franky. And to see how happy Franky was that they accepted in return! The whole room was suddenly full to bursting with celebrating pirates and excited chatter that she could only observe from the sidelines.

“Kid… Ishu,” Franky said to her comparatively quietly. He’d (surprisingly discreetly) separated himself from the others after a few minutes, and Ishu turned away from watching her friends to glance at him questioningly. He was looking at her with a serious expression on his face, and it made something squirm uncomfortably inside her to see such a thing directed her way. None of the others were paying attention to their conversation though, which she thought she preferred. “Have you given any thought to what you want to do when they leave?”

Ishu’s eyes slammed shut. There it was. “Yes, I have,” she admitted quietly, despite the sharp pain blooming in her chest.

Nodding as if he’d expected that answer, Franky laid a gentle hand on her shoulder. “Well I was talking to Baka-berg earlier today, and he said that he knew of a couple families that work for Galley-La that would be willing to take you in,” he told her. “I know you probably still miss your own family, but they’re all super people, and Water 7 is a good place to live. You’d have a good life here, I promise. We’ll take care of you.”

Ishu opened her eyes and tried to ignore the way they were swimming, moved by the thoughtfulness and sincerity of the offer. It was everything she could have asked for, but… there was just one problem. “I know,” she sniffled. “And please tell Iceberg-san thank you for me but… I can’t stay on Water 7.”

“Eh?” Franky replied with a frown. “Why not?”

“I know too much,” Ishu admitted, furiously swiping at a few stray tears that had rolled down her cheeks. It had occurred to her only the day before, but she hadn’t been able to forget the revelation. “You saw what I can do with my devil fruit, and you _met _Spandam. He used me to keep track of every documented CP9 mission and intelligence report that’s been run in the past thirty _years _just because it was convenient, and I can’t… I can’t just _un-know _dangerous things like that. On top of the reason why my island was destroyed with a Buster Call in the first place and I…” She choked down a sob. “Anyone kind enough to take me in would be hunted down and killed for their trouble, and I can’t watch it happen again!”

Franky appeared stunned, then gutted. “Kid…” he sighed, slumping, but was unable to finish his thought because Robin had finally noticed Ishu’s distress and had rushed over and scooped her up into her arms.

“What happened?” she asked Franky coldly as Ishu clung to her, gladly accepting the comfort and pressing her wet face into the woman’s shoulder.

Franky winced, but didn’t appear at all repentant. “You and I should talk after this, Robin-san,” he told her in lieu of a proper answer.

Robin never got the chance to respond, however, because that was when a Marine Vice-Admiral _burst through the wall_.

“So you guys are the Straw Hats!” the man bellowed as the dust settled. Ishu was dropped back to her feet and she scrambled to ready herself for a fight, cursing herself for not having sensed this behemoth coming. She’d been rather lax with monitoring her surroundings here in the shipyard, assuming their safety in Galley-La’s care and accustomed to being with adults who were capable of keeping vigil when she wasn’t. She’d never seen any of her friends consciously channel their spiritual energy before though, and now the inevitable result of her lapse in judgement stood before her wearing a helmet shaped like a dog’s head. “I’ve got some guys I want to meet Monkey D. Luffy,” the Marine continued. He spotted the Captain sleeping at the table then, and scoffed. “Geez… he’s as hopeless as ever.”

He leaped right past Sanji, Chopper, and Franky then, at a speed which Ishu could only hope to reproduce with Flutter. “WAKE UP!” His fist came down hard on Luffy’s head.

“Ouch, that hurt!” Luffy wailed, clutching at his head as he was rudely thrown back into the waking world.

“What are you saying?” Sanji spluttered. “You’re made of rubber!”

The Marine chuckled. “There’s no means to ward off a Fist of Love,” he said sagely, removing his helmet. “Looks like you’ve gone on quite the rampage, huh Luffy?”

For his part, Luffy just stared up at the man with horrified eyes. “G-g-grandpa!” he stammered.

Ishu froze. _What?_

“A Navy Vice Admiral is his _grandpa_?” they all shrieked in unison.

“Luffy, isn’t there something you need to apologize to me for?” Luffy’s grandpa demanded, ignoring the reactions from the peanut gallery. Ishu couldn’t blame him. He was very powerful. They likely weren’t a threat to him as they were.

Then came the revelation that Luffy’s grandpa was none other than Garp “The Fist”. Ishu had nearly choked on her own spit at that. Even Spandam, with all his overblown arrogance and self-importance, had been afraid of this man!

“Don’t you dare mess with him!” Luffy cautioned them. He needn’t have bothered. She was well aware that her best chance of surviving Vice Admiral Garp, should he attack, would be to run. “When I was small, he almost killed me a bunch of times!”

“Now don’t go around giving me a bad name,” Vice Admiral Garp complained. He then proceeded to elaborate on several near-death experiences he’d subjected his grandson to in the name of making him into a good Marine and… Ishu had a sneaking suspicion of why Luffy had decided to become the King of the Pirates instead. She wasn’t impressed by anyone who harmed their family in the name of helping them, and she could tell that the others weren’t either.

“I told you over and over that I wanted to become a pirate!” Luffy argued back to his grandpa, who wasn’t at all pleased that Luffy hadn’t joined the Marines.

“You got corrupted by Red Hair. How foolish!” Garp growled.

“Shanks saved my life, don’t badmouth him!” (And wow, Luffy knew a _Yonko_? That was so _cool_!)

Vice Admiral Garp didn’t like that though, and grabbed Luffy to threaten him with his raised fist, but then… they both fell asleep?

The Monkey D. family was full of ridiculous people, Ishu decided.

“What do we do?” Sanji despaired, staring at the pair of them as they snored away. “I’ve never been in this situation!”

Neither had anyone else, it seemed, as no one had an answer for him.

Then his grandpa woke up, and Luffy got his ass handed to him. None of them intervened, realizing at this point that he probably wasn’t in mortal danger. Watching the blows land, Ishu realized in awe that Vice Admiral Garp was using his spiritual energy to make his punches powerful enough to hurt his rubber grandson, who usually didn’t flinch in the face of blunt force trauma. It was rare to see outside of the New World, she’d been told; and even then, practitioners of the art limited themselves to only three ways of channeling their energy for some incomprehensible reason.

The beating didn’t last long, and Vice Admiral Garp once again lit into his grandson with his words alone, ranting about how Luffy had been corrupted by a Yonko without even knowing what a Yonko was. That was when Zoro finally arrived to help (late, as always) and began disposing of the Marines that had gathered outside.

Vice Admiral Garp didn’t seem concerned in the least, but rather amused at how “energetic” Zoro was. He told his two disciples to try stopping him. A blonde man with double kukris blades went after Zoro, and a younger, pink-haired boy attacked Luffy when he ran to stop the fight. Neither of the Straw Hats so much as broke a sweat in defeating them, and when it was revealed that these two were actually old friends of theirs, Ishu officially gave up being concerned about the situation and stalked off to the kitchen to get a snack. (Because that was something she could just _do _now!) She sat herself on top of the counter and grouchily munched on carrots.

She didn’t _like _Marines and what they did to people. Even if these ones were Luffy’s friends. She wanted nothing to do with them.

(And if she found the fact that the Vice Admiral’s own Marines refused to repair the wall for him unless he helped to do it oddly charming? Well, that was an entirely separate issue.)

“Come to think of it Luffy, I heard you saw your old man,” Vice Admiral Garp said, halfway through the repairs. The entire Straw Hat crew was standing around and staring at him like he was a particularly exotic zoo animal, but the man didn’t seem to notice or care.

“What? My dad? I have a dad?” Luffy asked.

And… wow, these two were sure something. Because Vice Admiral Garp was picking his nose now, and Ishu was having flashbacks to when she’d seen Luffy do the same thing in the middle of an important moment. “Oh, then he didn’t tell you who he was?” the man cackled. “I heard that he saw you off at Loguetown.”

There wasn’t a single spark of recognition visible on Luffy’s face. Though since the others still seemed confused as well, Ishu realized that this was probably because there really hadn’t been any indication of the meeting rather than the obliviousness being a result of Luffy being… Luffy.

“What’s my dad like?” the Captain asked curiously.

“Your father’s name is Monkey D. Dragon. He’s a revolutionary!”

Ishu choked on her carrot, coughing violently until Franky took pity on her and pounded her on the back. Luffy’s father… was the Revolutionary Dragon? “_What_?” she squeaked. Somehow, Luffy didn’t seem to immediately recognize the name, though his crew and the assembled Marines _definitely _did. Ishu never thought she would be thankful for Marines, but she was certainly glad that they, at least, seemed capable of reacting to important information like normal people. (With shock and horror, in this case. Because gods, Luffy, if word of this _ever _got out… he’d be hunted to the ends of the earth. How could his grandfather think the World Government would ever suffer for Dragon’s son to live, Marine or not?)

It took Robin explaining things to him for Luffy to get some sort of grasp on the situation. Even then, Ishu felt that she may have understated things. For the Revolutionary Dragon to be the son of a _Vice Admiral _of all people… it was little wonder that there wasn’t much publicly known about the mysterious leader of the Revolutionary Army now. Not even CP9 had known of this! Ishu imagined that a lot of effort had gone into hiding the truth. If the world knew that their most reviled criminal was the son of one of their most celebrated heroes…

“Ah! I guess I shouldn’t have said anything about it, huh?” Vice Admiral Garp laughed, playing it off as if he were simply a forgetful old man. “Well then, forget what I just said.”

None of them would though, and he knew it. He’d let this information slip for a reason.

No doubt because of the fact that the Straw Hat Pirates had officially declared war against the World Government, Ishu realized. The World Government would be gunning for them harder than ever now, between that and the fact that Nico Robin had now been confirmed as a member of the crew. Whatever protection that Vice Admiral Garp had been able to give his grandson up until this point would soon be over in the wake of the destruction of Enies Lobby, but he could at least point him in the direction of someone who could pick up where he left off, even if associating with the Revolutionary Army posed its own set of dangers. It was rather smart, actually. And touching, in a brutal sort of way. But they lived in a brutal sort of world.

Ishu wondered if any of them realized the magnitude of the fight they’d started. Not that they’d care, of course. Their loyalty to their nakama was unshakable, and even if Nico Robin hadn’t been a part of their crew, Luffy was the son of Monkey D. Dragon. They’d have become targets of the World Government eventually whether they wanted to or not. But were they prepared? She wanted to believe that they were, but… a small part of her also thought that they weren’t. Not yet.

They were all reeling, with the exception of the Vice Admiral; and it seemed like almost no time had passed at all before he’d finished repairs on the wall. He stood with a grunt, and turned to face Luffy. “Since you’re my grandson, I decided not to capture you on this island!” he declared loudly. “I’m gonna give the Navy that good excuse, so stay here and rest easy!”

“That can’t be an excuse, so let’s tell them that he got away,” one of his Marines suggested with a long-suffering sigh.

Grandfather and grandson parted with punches, blood, and shouting. Luffy then departed to spend some time with Coby and Helmeppo before they left, leaving the rest of them tucked, shell-shocked, in their freshly-repaired temporary home. Franky and Nami immediately seemed to give up on the whole day as a bad job. Franky, Kiwi, and Mozu quickly departed back to their friends, and Nami declared in an absent tone that she was going to the pool with Granny Kokoro and Chimney. They offered for Ishu to go to the pool with them, but hadn’t been surprised when she politely declined the invitation and elected to stay back with the others. (Water. Blegh.)

As always, Sanji was able to read the room and sought to relieve the tension with food. He set out a tea service that Ishu, for once, did not even attempt to indulge in even though Chopper had pushed her into a seat at the table. She was too busy processing this new information, and from the sidelong glances slung her way, she knew that the gears in her head were visibly turning. Still, none of them bothered her about it, even after Sanji took off in a frantic rush when he realized that Nami would be wearing a swimsuit if she was spending time at the pool.

Ishu took the opportunity to silently slip out of the room in his wake. Having everyone so near to her suddenly felt stifling, and her thoughts were crashing too loudly against each other in her head. They constricted her chest like steel bars and made her feel like she was drowning in the air, unable to take oxygen in no matter how deeply or frequently she breathed. Before, when she got like this, she’d just push everything out of her mind and focus on work. Distance herself from reality and her own body by drifting away from the present and busying herself with some menial task while her mind shut itself off for the most part. But now… what did she have to do? There was no more work to be done. All that was left was _her, _and the inside of her own head, and Ishu wanted nothing to with the thoughts that her earlier conversation with Franky had stirred up. As she stood alone outside the house, Ishu could still hear and sense her new friends still inside. And for the first time since she’d met them, she didn’t want to.

So with a low murmur of “Dragonfly!” she sprouted her two sets of wings and took off running until they caught the air and she lifted away from the shipyard, spiraling higher and higher until she was able to circle around the whole island of Water 7. It seemed so calm and still from up above. The only thing she could hear was the wind rushing in her ears, and from way up here, the world dwindled beneath her and seemed so much smaller than it actually was. Less terrifying.

Her friends would be leaving soon. Franky would build them a ship, and they’d probably sail off within the week if they wanted to keep ahead of the Marines. (Which they would. Because they were in terrible danger. More so than any of them had even realized they were in until now.) Ishu didn’t want them to go… but she wasn’t a baby. No matter how much she’d miss them, she knew that she couldn’t ask them to stay. _She _couldn’t even stay on Water 7, and she didn’t have anywhere close to the destructive track record that the Straw Hats did. Maybe they’d see each other out in the New World. Ishu certainly didn’t dare stay in Paradise.

If she could bring herself to do so, Ishu might beg the Straw Hats to take her with them. She doubted they’d agree to it though. Luffy was going to be King of the Pirates after all, and Ishu was just a kid. She’d be nothing but deadweight, and if they’d really wanted her to come along, they would have asked her by now. Even Franky didn’t think they’d bring her with them, and he was _old_! Besides… Ishu liked these pirates enough that she didn’t want to stay where she wasn’t welcome. (It would only break her heart.) There were other ships and other crews, after all, and Ishu wasn’t afraid of hard work. Surely she could pay her way with cleaning and chores, or even with fighting! She’d never be a front line fighter of course, but she could hold her own; and that was _valuable _on the Grand Line, no matter her age. Especially if the only passage she could find was on a pirate ship. Which was… more than likely, honestly, given that Ishu had little doubt that sooner or later the World Government would try to recapture her.

And she’d never let that happen.

She’d miss them... but she missed a lot of people. What was a few more faces to add to the list?

Delicately, Ishu landed on a rooftop not too far from Dock #1, having circled nearly all the way back to where she’d started. There, she took a seat with her back up against the curved dome of the roof and stared forlornly up at the sky as the sun slowly inched down the horizon. It would set soon, and she didn’t think she’d ever get tired of watching it. The sun had _never _set in Enies Lobby, making the world feel like some sort of endless nightmare that it was impossible to wake up from.

She couldn’t say how long she’d sat there wallowing in self-pity before her musings were interrupted by Zoro, of all people. Ishu hadn’t been paying attention –hadn’t felt him approach—when he’d dropped down at her side and adopted the same position as she had, leaning up against the curve of the red-tiled roof and letting his feet dangle over the edge of the building. It was a long drop down.

“Robin’s looking for you,” he said simply when she’d glanced over at him with a question already forming in her mouth.

Snapping her mouth back shut again, Ishu felt a little guilty. She’d clung so closely to the woman ever since she’d met her –rarely ever leaving her side—it was little wonder she’d been worried when Ishu had suddenly disappeared without telling anyone where she was going for what she now realized was at least two hours, judging from the position of the sun. Worried her enough that she’d sent Zoro to find her, apparently. “Sorry,” she muttered with a frown. This was hard. Robin worrying about her would only make things worse for both of them when they left.

“I’m not the one you should apologize to.”

Ishu felt even worse at the implied reprimand, and curled in on herself slightly even as Zoro crossed his arms behind his head and looked for all the world like he was ready to take a nap then and there. She’d have almost preferred it if he just hit her and had done with it. At least then she wouldn’t have to think about how she’d apparently upset Robin enough to warrant an apology. These people had taken her –a complete stranger—in out of sheer kindness alone and had treated her well, and it made her uncomfortable to think she’d repaid them with ingratitude.

“Want to talk about it?” Zoro offered instead, opening one eye and training it on her face. “I’m a good listener.”

“I…” Ishu hesitated. She what? She was scared? She couldn’t do this? She couldn’t bear for them to leave her behind, but thought that their rejection might be even worse? “I’ll miss you,” she decided on.

Zoro blinked. “Eh?”

“When you leave. I’ll miss you. All of you,” Ishu whispered.

Comprehension dawned, and Zoro nodded slowly, pursing his lips. “You know,” he told her slowly. Carefully, like his words had weight. (They did.) “Even if we’re apart for the moment, that doesn’t mean that we aren’t friends, or that we don’t care. We’d never leave a friend behind without promising to meet again.”

Tears stung at Ishu’s eyes, and she swallowed past the lump that formed in her throat. “I know,” she said thickly. And she honestly _did _know that. It didn’t make it easier though.

Zoro seemed to realize that and merely placed an arm behind her shoulders in a silent offering of comfort and remained there –stock still—until Ishu finally relaxed and leaned into his side with a sigh. She hadn’t done this with Zoro before, her displays of affection usually reserved for the less physically intimidating members of the crew. Namely Chopper, Robin, and Nami. But despite his rough appearance, Zoro was solid and warm against her side and seemed perfectly content to sit with her for as long as she liked. He was a steady presence, and exuded a quiet confidence that made her feel settled. It was nice.

“Are you ready?” he asked her after a few minutes, his earrings tinkling gently against each other like tiny windchimes as he tilted his head down to look at her.

Slowly, Ishu nodded. She wasn’t, really, but she could pull it together she decided. There wasn’t any need to waste what little time she had left with her friends by mourning their absence before they were even gone.

Seemingly satisfied with the response, Zoro stood and offered a hand to help her up. Ishu took it, and yelped when the swordsman pulled her all the way off her feet and placed her on top of his shoulders. “Everyone else is waiting by the pool. I think they’re planning a party,” he explained, dismounting the building with a few easy jumps off some nearby walls as Ishu clutched tightly to his forehead.

“Then shouldn’t we have turned left?” she questioned breathlessly as he took off in the complete opposite direction of where he’d said they needed to go.

Zoro frowned in confusion. “I could have sworn it was this way.”

“I can sense them in this direction though. Maybe it’s a shortcut,” Ishu offered politely, unsure how to tell him that they’d already walked past two road signs indicating the direction of Dock #1, and that he’d ignored them both. Thankfully, Zoro decided to let her navigate from there on out, and they arrived at their destination in short order.

Sure enough, the poolside party appeared to be in full swing.

“Ahoy! Zoro! Ishu! You’re here!” Luffy yelled at them through a full mouth, waving a chunk of meat at them in welcome as he caught sight of their entrance.

Ishu giggled, and Zoro rolled his eyes. “Hello again, Luffy-san!” she greeted him, waving back, sans meat.

The pool and deck area was already packed with people. The Franky Family was there, causing a ruckus as per usual, with Sodom and Gamora and even a pair of real live giants! So were the Galley-La shipwrights, and Iceberg himself, and Franky and Mozu and Kiwi. And even more people that Ishu had never seen before in her life. Everyone was shouting and laughing and eating and drinking, The air smelled heavily of mouth-watering barbecue, and Ishu couldn’t help but smile at the fact that so many people looked like they were having so much fun in the slowly-fading sunlight.

In a whirlwind of motion, Ishu suddenly found herself with a skewer of meat in one hand and a glass of juice in the other and deposited neatly on her feet near the edge of the party, where Robin was in the process of sweeping up some shattered glass. “Oi, Robin! Found her,” Zoro reported simply.

Robin smiled at him. “Thank you, Zoro-san.” He gave his crewmate a casual salute with his own meat skewer before wandering back off into the crowd.

Ishu scuffed to the toe of her sandal sheepishly against the ground as she was left alone with only Robin and her own sense guilt. “I’m sorry I left without telling anyone where I was going,” she blurted, seeing no sense in drawing it out and suddenly glad for the food she was holding because otherwise, she’d have no idea what to do with her hands.

Finished with sweeping up the last few shards of glass, Robin eyed her carefully. “There are… still Marines here on Water 7, Ishu-chan,” she told her stiffly as she turned to dump the dust tray into a nearby trash can. “I can’t stop you from going off by yourself, but I’d appreciate it if you let us know beforehand. You were gone for some time and we all worried that something happened to you.”

Ishu winced. “I’m sorry,” she repeated. “I didn’t—” She hesitated. Didn’t think they’d notice or care? That wasn’t true. She wouldn’t insult them by thinking they didn’t care about her safety or happiness when they’d already proven they did. She just… “I didn’t mean to scare anyone,” she finished meekly. She just hadn’t been thinking of them at all when she’d made the decision to leave. Despite the fact that she wasn’t used to anyone actually caring about her safety anymore, that was no excuse. She’d been selfish.

Thankfully, this seemed to be enough. The tenseness in Robin’s shoulders eased a little and she gave Ishu a tired smile. “It’s okay,” Robin assured her. “I’m glad Zoro was able to find you. It’s always hit or miss sending him out. Just tell someone when you’re leaving next time, yes?”

“I promise,” Ishu agreed with a relieved smile. She then contemplated her skewer for a moment before taking a tentative bite. Her eyes widened. “This is _really _good!” she enthused, and held it out to Robin.

Smiling indulgently, Robin accepted the offering and took a bite off the skewer. “It’s delicious!” she agreed with a light laugh. “Should we go tell Sanji-kun what we think?”

“Yosh!”

The party was incredible. After that, Ishu’s smile didn’t fall all evening. It was impossible to be preoccupied or sad in the midst of all the joy and excitement that was surrounding her. She was swept up in it all almost immediately when Chimney found her and grabbed her hand to drag her off into the crowd. They chased each other, squealing, and wove between the indulgent adults, stopping here and there to leap into the action. Ishu became the official victory girl when she’d taken to shooting colorful bursts of confetti into the air over the heads of the winners of the various impromptu games and competitions that sprung up. (Franky won the cannonball competition, Usopp won the singing event by default since he was the only participant, Granny Kokoro won the drinking game with Zoro getting confetti too for his honorable mention, and Nami swept the table at poker.) And there was so much incredible food! Sanji showed off his amazing skills the whole night to an adoring audience, and even though she probably shouldn’t have eaten so much, Ishu couldn’t help but want to try _everything _that he conjured seemingly out of thin air_. _Though thankfully, there was no shortage of people willing to share whatever she couldn’t finish.

She and Usopp, in his Sogeking disguise, even collaborated when he began telling one of his grand stories to a captive audience –a mix of the Franky Family, Chopper, and actual children—and Ishu animated a small army of origami figures in the air to act out his words dramatically, like a stage play. Their double act was a huge hit, and for the rest of the night, Ishu and Usopp were plied with bribes of sweets (and drinks, for Usopp) from various people in an effort to entice them to do another. By the end of it, they’d worked together to bring three more stories to life before they were upstaged by the fireworks, and Ishu eventually petered out and fell asleep in a disorganized pile of limbs with Chimney and Gonbe, her pockets stuffed with candies. She didn’t remember how the party ended outside of a general sense of being surrounded by warmth and laughter, and woke up the next morning back in the bed she shared with Robin with only one stubby pigtail still tied and chocolate still smeared on the corner of her mouth.

Groggily, she flopped from the mattress face-down onto the floor with a whine, not bothering to use her legs properly. Above her, she heard laughter, and Ishu found herself lifted into the air and deposited gently at the table by Luffy moments later. He hadn’t even gotten up, and had just stretched his arms across the room to drag her over. Somewhat used to his handsy behavior with his friends by now, Ishu just rubbed the sleep out of her eyes and thanked him, followed by Sanji when a stack of pancakes materialized under her nose. She dug in.

Zoro entered the room then, waggling a newspaper in the air. “They’ve finally run the story about Enies Lobby,” he announced, dropping to the floor and opening the paper to read it. A few murmurs of interest rose up around the room, and Ishu missed her mouth with her next bite of pancakes and smeared syrup across her left cheek.

“I thought they’d have reported on it sooner,” Nami admitted, idly reaching out and swiping at Ishu’s face with a napkin.

“Probably because they were busy spinning the story,” Zoro said wryly. “According to this, the Straw Hat Pirates acted alone. What’s the deal, when the Franky Family went on such a rampage?”

“Maybe your grandpa spun the information by saying that they were regular people who got dragged into the incident?” Sanji suggested from where he was standing behind Nami’s chair.

As one, Nami, Luffy, Chopper, Ishu, and Robin (who was standing by the window) wrinkled their noses and waved a dismissive hand as they recalled back to the Vice Admiral.

“No, he wouldn’t think of that,” Luffy said.

“I don’t think he would either,” they chorused.

“At any rate, that’s good news,” Sanji ceded. “We’re pirates, but they’re not. If they had to live on the run from here on out, I’d feel bad.”

From across the room, Zoro scoffed. “Instead, they wrote terrible things about us,” he noted, eyes moving quickly over the page. “According to this, we declared war on the World Government and burned the island down with the help of an escaped prisoner.” He laughed. “Looks like our bounties will go up again!”

Hearing this, Chopper bounced gleefully in his seat. “Wow! Do you think I’ll get a bounty too?” he asked.

“Well it’s not impossible, but _I’m _the one who’s gonna be in trouble,” Sanji answered, entirely too smug.

“Why are you guys happy about it?” Nami shrieked. “Are you stupid, or what?”

For her part, Ishu agreed with Nami. Higher bounties wouldn’t help any of them moving forwards. Though she couldn’t deny that a small part of her felt a level of satisfaction at sharing the blame for the destruction of Enies Lobby, since she assumed that she was the ‘escaped prisoner’ in question. (The use of the word prisoner as a euphemism for an uglier truth made her snort quietly to herself.) It wasn’t revenge, or even the truth, but she still thought the Island Guard would’ve been proud of her. Even if her Papa would say that the notoriety would place her in danger.

“We’ll have to leave soon. We won’t be able to safely stay here much longer,” Robin observed calmly, shattering Ishu’s thoughts. “Hopefully, Franky won’t take too much time with the new ship.”

“Huh? What? Franky’s building a ship for us?” Luffy exclaimed with wide eyes and a huge smile. He leaped from his seat at the table in his excitement.

“Oh, that’s right. You were sleeping when he told us,” Sanji recalled.

Luffy burst into appreciative cheers, dancing in place.

“Well then, why don’t I go shopping while we wait?” Nami suggested cheerfully, sitting up from the table as well. Her good mood only lasted mere moments, however, since she soon discovered that most of their money had gone towards the massive party they’d thrown the night before.

Ishu fell out of her chair when Nami’s rage exploded on her Captain, and she scurried to press herself against Robin’s side even though she wasn’t its target, her heart pounding nervously. Thankfully, Robin didn’t make a big deal out of her behavior and just ran a soothing hand across her cheek without taking her eyes off of the argument playing out in front of them. She cringed on Luffy’s behalf at the violence he’d incurred from his navigator, and made a mental note to never, _ever _spend money without Nami’s permission.

“I wanted to get gorgeous furniture for the ship,” Nami sobbed, falling dramatically to the floor.

Chuckling fondly, Robin took Ishu’s hand and walked them over to Nami’s form, where she laid her other hand comfortingly on the other woman’s shaking shoulder. “Let’s go hunt for a bargain,” she suggested.

“Oh, Nami! I’m gonna go out and have some fun, so give me some spending money,” Luffy cut in, as if he’d completely forgotten the entire first half of the conversation.

Ishu could only join in on awkwardly patting Nami’s back as the woman swore so violently that the actual words she used were indecipherable. “You’re not getting anything!” she screeched, spinning around and clocking him again. (She didn’t feel bad for Luffy this time. He’d had _that _one coming.)

The group split up at that point, when Robin seemed to deem it safest to quickly divvy up the remaining beri and drag Nami away from the situation. She towed a nervous Ishu behind her, hopping on one foot as she struggled to pull her sandals on and still keep up with the adults’ longer legs as they descended towards the lower levels of Water 7.

“So what do you need to buy?” Ishu asked after a few minutes had passed and Nami’s silent fuming seemed to have calmed somewhat.

Nami seemed to perk up at that, and launched into a rather long list of “necessities”. Robin smiled at the woman from behind her hand and shot Ishu a wink when it seemed that the question managed to pull the navigator completely out of her funk. Ishu could only sigh in relief that the storm seemed to have passed. “But first,” Nami concluded with a bright smile, “We have to go get something important.”

“What is it?” Ishu asked curiously, unable to help herself as she sped up to look at Nami with her head lightly cocked to one side. Even Robin seemed intrigued, as if this was the first she’d heard of it.

“Ne, Imouto, you’ve seen my tattoo?” Nami asked, pulling up the sleeve of her shirt so that Ishu could get a clear look at her shoulder.

She _had _seen the marking before, and said as much. She thought the elegant blue curls of the pinwheel were pretty.

Nami nodded, then drew to a stop so she could turn and face her. They were very close to the backstreets now, but while Ishu could hear the sounds of people going about their business there, there weren’t many where they were now. “My tattoo didn’t always look like this,” Nami told her seriously. “When I got it, it was the symbol of a pirate called Arlong. He took over my village, and if somebody couldn’t pay the monthly fee of beri to him, he’d kill them. He made me join his crew to make maps for him when I was just a little girl, and lied to me by saying he’d sell the village back to me one day if I could earn enough money, even though he never intended to let me or them go. He gave me the tattoo as a sign of my loyalty to him. Understand?”

And Ishu _did _understand. She nodded slowly, eyes welling. Nami might not have been legally classified as a slave like Ishu had been, but she’d been a slave nonetheless. For probably longer than Ishu had been. She’d even been branded like one, in a way.

Nami smiled at her, the expression bittersweet. “When Luffy and the others rescued me, I had it changed. Because I’m free now. So I thought that if you’d like, we could have your mark changed too.”

The offer nearly bowled her over, and Ishu’s breath stuttered in her chest. “R-Really?” she asked, voice quivering.

“Really,” the woman assured her, and pulled her around the corner before pointing down the street. “Look!” Sure enough, Nami had led them to a building that the sign outside advertised as a tattoo parlor. At his point, Ishu couldn’t stop crying for long enough to verbalize her emphatic agreement, and instead just clutched Nami tightly around the waist and nodded over and over into her stomach. She knew enough to know that she’d never entirely be free of the impact her slavery had had upon her body. She wasn’t naïve. But the physical symbol of ownership that they’d melted into the flesh between her shoulder blades? This she wanted _gone_. She’d just never thought she’d be able to have it done so soon, given that she was completely penniless after all.

Thankfully, Nami and Robin gave her a few minutes to collect herself before they each took one of her hands and led her inside. Once there, Robin picked her up and held her in a comforting embrace, distracting her with a story about a giant turtle she used to ride around on while she’d been based in Alabasta while Nami explained the situation to the tattoo artist inside in hushed tones, so that Ishu wouldn’t have to hear what they were saying.

The whole process was surprisingly easy. The tattoo artist –a friend of Zambai's named Ken—had been both horrified and sympathetic, and had immediately agreed to help and asked Ishu a lot of detailed questions about what she wanted so that he’d be able to get it done “just right”. She’d answered him shyly that she wanted the symbol of her enslavement to be covered with the symbol of her own country –a green eight-pointed star edged in blue—and a list of names inked onto her skin just below it. She’d provided both to him on a sheet of paper of her own creation, so that he’d know exactly what her island’s star looked like and how to spell the names she wanted immortalized alongside it. Ken agreed instantly to her wishes, and had her take off her shirt and lay down on a padded table while he worked.

The process of covering the Claw of the Celestial Dragon with a tattoo wasn’t nearly as painful as it had been to receive it in the first place via branding iron (especially considering her own unique susceptibility to burns) but it still stung quite a lot. Though this time, the pain was something that Ishu fervently welcomed. Nami and Robin each held one of her hands the whole time anyways, and did their best to distract her with conversation whenever any hint of discomfort made its way past her neutral expression. Thankfully, it wasn’t that hard to convert the shape of the brand from its original state into the eight-pointed star. Ken only really had to ink over the scars and add four additional points to the center circle.

“It’s lovely, Ishu-chan,” Robin commented when Ken had reached the approximate halfway point with the star. “Was this on your flag?”

“Yes,” she answered, and a thousand words and stories suddenly felt like they were ready to erupt off her tongue. She’d never had the opportunity to tell anyone about her home before now (outside of an interrogation, that is) but she found that it was… surprisingly easy this time. She _wanted _to. And Robin was an archaeologist, wasn’t she? She liked to talk about things like this. “It’s what our mountain was shaped like at its base. The Island Guard also wore it on their uniforms. Only warriors like them are supposed to wear the starcrest though, so now that it’s on me forever I’ll need to always make sure I’m a worthy practitioner of the art so I don’t bring shame to it,” she rambled.

Robin nodded. “You won’t,” she said with complete confidence. The sentiment made Ishu feel warm. “What’s the art?”

“That’s… a complicated question,” Ishu admitted, wrinkling her nose. “It doesn’t translate well to Common.”

“Eh?” Nami broke in then. “I didn’t know there were islands who spoke anything else anymore.”

“It’s become less and less commonplace over the years due to cultural shifts, immigration, and colonization, but there are still plenty of islands that maintain their own languages,” Robin prevaricated. “Mostly in the more isolated parts of the Blues. Islands on the Grand Line are usually too close together and well-traveled for indigenous languages to have kept hold.”

“Close. Starcrest was actually in the Calm Belt,” Ishu revealed.

Nami reacted with shock, spluttering about Sea Kings and how that was _impossible, _but Robin lit up like Ishu had just given her the last piece of a particularly tricky puzzle. “Ah, like the Kuja Pirates!” she said triumphantly.

Ishu hummed in agreement. “Yes, though Starcrest was on the opposite side of the Grand Line from Amazon Lilly. We were really isolated, as you might expect. It was very uncommon for anyone to leave the island, and even then, it was our highest law that no one who left ever revealed its location. Of course, none of that really mattered once the Navy figured out how to sail through the Calm Belt.”

Even Robin reacted with surprise at that. “They can? That’s possible?” she questioned with an alarmed expression.

“It is,” Ishu sighed. “We were never sure how they managed it. They didn’t do it like we did. Papa just said that one day, Navy Vessels suddenly began to be able to row their way through without the Sea Kings attacking them, for the most part. After that, it was only a matter of time before they found us.”

“But… why would they destroy the island?” Nami asked, her voice hesitant to approach such a painful subject but apparently unable to contain her curiosity.

Ishu didn’t mind the question. Not from Nami. “Because we were practitioners of the art,” she answered simply, the conversation running full circle. “In the New World, they call it Haki. But that word… isn’t really the same thing. It _sort _of is, I guess? But when people say Haki they usually mean only a few certain forms of the art.” She growled in frustration and vowed to think of a better way to explain it later. “It’s a very powerful skill that’s difficult to learn, but even the slightest mastery can enhance most fighting techniques to whole new levels. It’s how I can tell where people are even when I can’t see them, and I used a few other variations of the skill when we were fighting in Enies Lobby. Vice Admiral Garp even used it for his Fist of Love when he hit Luffy-san.”

“The one that hurt him, even though he’s made of rubber!” Nami realized with wide eyes.

Ishu smiled at her, and winced when Ken moved his needle a little too deep. He murmured an apology to her and kept working, and she spared a moment to feel a little bad for him to have to sit through a heavy conversation like this one. “Yes, that’s one way to practice the art,” Ishu agreed. “But so far as I’m aware, our particular methodology is unique. This was something that the Marines wanted to learn, of course, but we have strict doctrines against teaching outsiders.” Ishu relayed, her voice dropping low and mournful. “So the World Government asked us to become a part of them. Official negotiations started when I was nine. Papa brought me along as a translator since not every Counsel member could speak common, and I could create multiple transcripts for everyone at the table as fast as the words were spoken.” She took a steadying breath, and Robin squeezed her hand so hard it began to hurt a little as she realized where the story was going. “I was ten when Admiral Akainu came. The negotiations weren’t going well, and I thought he was there to help but… but he wasn’t. Papa and the rest of the Counsel refused to give the World Government manpower or even education, so the Admiral ordered his men to attack our city and capture it by force. They couldn’t do it though, and Papa burned their flag.”

“Like Usopp,” Nami murmured.

Ishu laughed a little, but the noise was perilously close to tears. “Like Usopp,” she said. “That’s when Admiral Akainu activated the Buster Call. He said that we were... that we were just backwards savages living on a useless island and that we couldn’t be allowed to potentially arm their enemies if we weren’t smart enough to side with justice. Faced with such overwhelming numbers and firepower… well, you know what happened next. Starcrest doesn’t exist anymore,” she finished with a sniffle. “Master Momousagi caught me when I was trying to get to the life rafts when Papa sent me away. I thought… we’d spent a lot of time together the past few months. I’d thought she was my friend, but she wasn’t. She took me to Mariejois and…”

Ishu stopped herself there, suddenly conscious of the fact that Ken’s hands had started to shake and he’d stopped working. That was enough for now. Nami wiped away a few stray tears, and Robin had gone silent and very, very stiff.

“I’m so glad we found you,” Nami muttered once it was clear that Ishu wasn’t going to be saying anything further.

Ishu laughed wetly. “Me too!” The Straw Hat Pirates were the best thing that had ever happened to her.

Ken resumed his work once more in the lull in conversation, and before long, he’d finished. “Done,” he announced after he’d spread a layer of cool gel onto the finished piece and bandaged it up. He helped her sit up, and gave her shirt to Robin so that she could carefully help Ishu back into it. “Leave the bandage on until tomorrow morning. After that, you can wash it off and leave it uncovered. Just keep the area clean until it fully heals, and watch out for any signs of infection. This one’s… this one’s on me, kid.”

Touched, Ishu blinked up at the man and smiled. “Thank you,” she said sincerely.

“The words you asked him to add, what were they?” Robin asked her as Ishu hopped down from the table and took a moment to steady herself on her feet. Wordlessly, Ishu handed her a copy of the same reference paper she’d given to Ken. Robin accepted it gingerly, frowning as she glanced it over and didn’t recognize most of the names. “I see Starcrest. And Ohara. Enies Lobby. The others?”

Ishu swallowed. “In the past fifty years before Enies Lobby, there have been nine recorded Buster Calls, and two recorded survivors,” she whispered. “So if nobody else is alive to remember their names, _I _will.”

Inhaling sharply, Robin squatted down to meet Ishu at eye level. She studied her face closely for a moment, then pulled her in close for a hug, careful not to touch any of the bandages on her back. For a change, now it was Robin who was crying into _her _shoulder, though she did so silently. (She could only tell because of the hitch in her breathing and the damp patch that she could feel slowly spreading over her shoulder.) Ishu curled her fingers into the fabric of Robin’s Galley-La shirt and held on tightly, trying to memorize the way the woman smelled and how her hair felt against the side of her face. Franky would have the ship finished in mere days, and then Robin would be gone. Ishu would _miss _her.

After a few moments (not long enough) the scene was interrupted when another customer entered the tattoo parlor, the bell above the door jingling merrily. Ishu was reluctant to let go when Robin wiped her eyes and stood, but settled for clinging to her hand instead as they swept out of the shop in Nami’s wake. Nami seemed emotional after the conversation they’d had too, but compensated with forced chatter about all the stores she’d planned for them to visit until her enthusiasm became a little more real. Ishu hung on her every word regardless of their inanity, because second only to the day of their escape from Enies Lobby, this was probably the best day of her life.

The acute soreness of her back was, for once, a constant reminder of her own freedom rather than a memory of some torment that she’d been helpless to prevent, after all. Ishu smiled through each and every wave of uncomfortable heat as they swept over her.

They made it through three clothing stores before the press caught up to them. Clothes shopping with Nami was something of an ordeal. They didn’t actually end up buying much, but Nami wanted to try on _everything_. Even things that Ishu got the feeling she didn’t really want to wear in the first place, but asked for their opinions on anyways. Robin couched everything in complements. On the rare occasions that she didn’t cheerfully tell her friend that she looked amazing in a particular item, she always phrased it to sound that she’d liked some other piece too much for this one to really compare. Nami lapped it all up and was practically preening within ten minutes. Which was why when they found themselves surrounded by reporters, Nami was in a good enough mood to humor them. Not that Ishu could really blame her. Still in awe over their daring mission to Enies Lobby and whipped up into a grateful frenzy by Iceberg’s crediting the Straw Hats with his rescue (Though Ishu was fairly certain that Robin had actually _shot _the man at one point according to the mission report Spandam had received. Still, what were a few bullets amongst friends?) the reporters were positively _gushing _over Nami and Robin. The women had drawn themselves up proudly in the circle of pens and paper and cameras, and Nami’s behavior slipped from coy into a downright predatory realm almost instantly, which was an interesting shift to witness.

Ishu mostly hid shyly behind their legs, watching everything with wide eyes.

“Please, tell us how you two joined the Straw Hat Pirates!” a man entreated the two women, pen at the ready.

One of the photographers off to the side gestured sharply at Ishu while her companions were occupied with the reporters and made an impatient gesture in her direction. “Step off kid, you’re ruining shot,” he hissed. Ishu scowled blackly and made a rude hand gesture in his direction, and was forced to blink the spots out of her eyes when he snapped a picture with the flash right in her face in retaliation. Any other attempts he might have made to speak to Ishu were halted in their tracks when Robin gave him a sharp look, and he backed off.

“Yes, please tell us everything there is to know about the beautiful female pirates!” a second man reiterated.

Nami smiled and touched a hand shyly to her face. “I can’t really talk about personal things like that,” she dodged.

“We’re not going to get much shopping done like this,” Robin commented. She was smiling though, and didn’t seem to be in a hurry to ruin Nami’s fun.

Sure enough, Nami completely ignored her, and Ishu couldn’t help but giggle when she told the reporter who’d asked her what type of men she liked that she preferred well-mannered and distinguished gentlemen. (This, Ishu could only assume, was the truth. Such men often had heavy wallets, after all.)

“How would you two feel about putting out a swimsuit photo book with us?” a pair of sleazily-smiling photographers asked next. “There’s no doubt it would be a best seller!”

Nami’s smile at that seemed like something that belonged more on a shark than on a human. “Hey you, you’ve got some guts!” she reprimanded them, seizing the closest one roughly by his collar. He began stuttering out apologies almost immediately, but stopped himself when she added, “It’ll cost you a fortune. How much can you pay?”

“Are you serious?” Robin laughed behind her hand. Though Ishu dryly noted that she hadn’t immediately said _no _to the prospect.

“Sure I am. Luffy used up all our money,” Nami complained, releasing the flustered photographer. “We need to earn more through photo books, or whatever else we can!”

That’s when Sanji burst onto the scene in a huff and started kicking, scattering the paparazzi away while shouting about how he was going to kill each and every one of them that had just had lewd expressions on their faces. “Nami-san, Robin-chan, I drove those damn noisy flies away, so please rest easy,” he declared smoothly the second he’d cleared the area, suddenly acting elegant and nonchalant and as if he _hadn’t _just spectacularly lost his cool in front of them.

“Thanks Sanji-kun, now we can do our shopping done in peace,” Nami said amusedly.

Ishu had definitely seen the white flash of a business card vanish into Nami’s pocket though, so she was quite certain that Nami would be taking those swimsuit photographers for all they were worth later on anyways.

Sanji nearly swooned. “By the way, for today’s schedule, how does this sound? The three of us can rent a pool—”

“Cook guy!” Chimney interrupted him, approaching with Gonbe. Ishu waved cheerfully at her.

“—and have a nice date on the water. And then we’ll go to a nice restaurant—_What_?” he demanded, shooting the girl a glare.

Chimney was completely unruffled. “I’m hungry,” she complained.

“You just ate some water-water candy!” Sanji whined.

“I’m hungry! I’m hungry! I’m hungry!”

“Okay. I’ll give you some money so you and Ishu can buy food and go home,” he offered, exasperated as he knelt down to Chimney’s level. Then, in a too-loud whisper, he added that he might be going out on a date with Nami and Robin and asked her not to be so whiny.

Ishu burst out laughing at that. Sanji was so funny! Nami and Robin shushed her, but they were smirking to themselves too, so Ishu didn’t try _too _hard to keep a straight face.

Clearly, Chimney had about as much faith in Sanji’s chances as Ishu did, and her eyes began welling with crocodile tears. “I don’t wanna go home yet!” she wailed, her and Gonbe releasing synchronous sounds of fake distress.

“Crying won’t get you anywhere!”

“Don’t worry Chimney!” Nami intervened with a sweet smile. “Sanji-kun has a harsh tongue, but he’s very nice to women.”

“That’s right. He isn’t someone who’d overlook a lady in need,” Robin added sagely.

Ishu nodded vigorously. “Sanji-san can make you a pirate lunch box!”

Sanji looked crushed. “Nami-san… Robin-chan… Imouto-san…” he whined.

The three of them giggled to each other. “Chimney, have Sanji-kun play with you to your heart’s content,” Nami told the other girl.

“Yosh!”

“Well then, we’ll see you both later,” Robin said graciously, and then turned and walked away. Nami pulled Ishu along with her as she followed, swinging their joined hands back and forth between them playfully and ignoring the sounds of Sanji’s distress emanating from behind them.

“Doesn’t he ever get tired of that?” Ishu asked her companions curiously.

“Not that I’ve been able to tell,” Nami laughed, before dragging them into another store.

The day practically crawled by in a blur of outfits, but Ishu still enjoyed herself as she played fashion judge for Nami and occasionally Robin. They’d even stopped at a children’s store at one point, where Ishu had felt a little victimized as both women lit up at how “cute” the selection was and Ishu became less of a person with opinions and more of a living dress-up doll for the next hour. She’d insisted the entire time that she didn’t need for them to buy her anything, since they’d done enough for her already and that she didn’t have anywhere to store extra clothes and accessories anyways. She was summarily and flatly ignored after Robin had declared her a spoilsport and Nami decided that Ishu’s determined non-participation meant that she had no fashion sense and was therefore in dire need of their help.

The day remained cheerful and easy though, and by the time they began their walk back to Dock #1, Ishu could honestly say that she’d had a lot of fun. She felt so light and carefree that she was almost dizzy with it, actually. The three of them were loaded down with shopping bags. Most were full of Nami’s purchases, though a few contained assorted items they’d picked up for the rest of the crew, and Robin and Ishu each had a bag of clothes of their own. Ishu was even wearing some of her new shoes (A pair of sturdy ankle-high boots. Good for stomping.) and clutched a blue and green stuffed yagara tightly to her chest. (Robin had slipped the toy into her hands with a wink after disappearing for a few minutes while Ishu and Nami went to buy them all some lunch, and Ishu had immediately loved it so much she cried again and had refused to let go for the rest of the day. She’d named him Tulip, for the pink cloth flower he had stitched onto his mane.)

They arrived back with the others just in time for Sanji to serve them both the most delicious bowl of noodles that Ishu had ever had the pleasure to taste, as well as the news that he’d stumbled across Usopp (who Chopper informed her in a hushed voice had actually left the crew after an argument with Luffy over his decision to buy a new ship, which was why he wasn’t currently living with them) practicing ways to get the Straw Hats to ask him back onto the crew. Ishu observed the ensuing argument over whether or not Usopp should be asked back with wide eyes, but privately thought that Zoro and Sanji had a point. Luffy might have been nicer than most pirate captains she’d ever heard of, but he _was _still the Captain, and he wouldn’t be able to lead his crew properly if they didn’t respect that.

Besides. Even though he didn’t say it, Ishu could tell that Zoro especially had been hurt by Usopp leaving the group. Usopp might have left to hurt Luffy, but in doing so he had also damaged his relationships with the others. His nakama. Because a crew was so much more than just its captain! It probably wasn’t any of her business, but Ishu rather thought that Zoro was well within his rights to expect an apology for that abandonment before Usopp was allowed back, so she was glad when Luffy finally conceded the point.

Ishu fell asleep that night still clutching tightly to Tulip. She’d slept like the dead ever since she’d been rescued from Enies Lobby, so she couldn’t say why tonight, she’d woken halfway through night. Her heart pounded in her chest with the vestiges of fear from the dream she’d been having (though when she tried to recall it even moments after waking, the memory of it slipped through her fingers like smoke) and she lay still and quiet where she lay, taking stock of her surroundings. She’d long learned the value of not advertising right away when she woke. It bought her valuable time to prepare herself for whatever she was waking up to.

Robin was no longer in bed with her, but Ishu could sense her not too far away. She was sitting at the table, head in her hands. Ishu might have gotten up to ask what was wrong, but Zoro beat her to the punch as he rolled out of his own bunk and took quiet steps towards his crewmate. Robin looked up as Zoro sat across from her and murmured a greeting. It was dark in the room. Everyone else was still asleep in their beds, as evidenced by the chorus of snores emanating from where they lay. Satisfied that with Zoro now handlings things everything was going to be all right, Ishu just smushed her face into the pillow and prepared to return to sleep.

She didn’t _mean _to eavesdrop on their conversation. Really! But she just couldn’t fall asleep fast enough to avoid it, and even though Robin and Zoro were being quiet, it’s not like there was anything _else _in the room to listen to.

“What’s wrong?” Zoro asked bluntly. Straight to the point, that one.

Robin didn’t seem to mind though. (That, or she was just used to it at this point.) “I spoke to Ishu some about her island and the Buster Call today,” she sighed. “I couldn’t sleep much tonight. Memories.”

Zoro grunted. “Good thing she can talk to you about those things. I never know what to say to her. She looks terrified of me half the time.”

“She’s scared of most things, not just you. I doubt it’s personal,” Robin pointed out. “Besides, you seemed to get along just fine when you brought her back after Garp-san’s visit.”

Zoro shrugged. “We didn’t actually talk much,” he admitted. “She said she’d miss us though, when we left.”

“Did she say where she plans to go afterwards?”

“No. But Iceberg said that he was going to set her up here on Water 7, didn’t he?”

Robin let out another sigh. “He offered, but she said no. Franky told me that she thinks that it will too dangerous for her to stay here once we leave, and that the World Government will be looking for her soon so anyone who takes her in will be in danger. He thinks she plans to leave shortly after we do, but I’m not sure with who or to where. I haven’t… I haven’t asked.”

“Have you told the others this?”

“No.”

“She’s right, you know,” Zoro pointed out with uncharacteristic gentleness. “We all saw the article they ran in the paper, and I can’t imagine the amount of classified information she’s collected with those powers of hers thanks to Spandam. They’ll be looking for her eventually, and I don’t blame her for trying to protect the people here. Didn’t you try the same thing?”

A soft noise of distress emanated over from where they were sitting, and Ishu couldn’t help but squeeze poor Tulip nearly to death when she realized that Robin sounded near tears. She was biting her own lip rather hard in an effort to keep silent, and she tasted copper on her tongue. “I know,” Robin bit out, her voice hoarse. “But we should be trying to find a safe place for her anyways. With a disguise or a new name or better security or… or _something_. I just… I don’t want this for her. If she ends up with a price on her head while she’s out on her own, she’ll… A child shouldn’t have to live on the run like that. I should know.”

“The World Government doesn’t care about what you want for her,” Zoro pointed out dryly. Though not unkindly. “You know that.”

They were quiet for a moment. “I know,” Robin whispered.

They didn’t talk any more after that, and just remained seated at the table in companionable silence. Despite the turmoil raging inside her, Ishu drifted back off long before Robin returned to bed. When she woke up again the next morning with her stomach twisted into knots of anxiety, she knew she had to do something.

So she very deliberately didn’t think about it. She didn’t think about the Straw Hats’ looming departure, or about how her own future seemed bleaker and bleaker by the day. Instead, she screwed a smile on her face and threw herself into enjoying her time with her friends until the smile became genuine. Robin had just sounded so… so _sad _when she thought about Ishu, and she didn’t want to be the reason behind the devastation lurking in her eyes. She didn’t want Robin to think of her and feel pain. She didn’t want _any _of them to. So she smiled and she laughed and every time Ishu caught herself starting to dwell on how frightened and _alone _she felt, she ruthlessly shoved the thoughts away into a locked vault in the back of her mind to process later, when none of her friends were here to see it.

(She waited until she could steal ten minutes alone for herself outside, or in the bathroom, and let her heart race and lungs gasp and body shake uncontrollably for a few minutes as she clutched Tulip desperately to her chest before she’d hold her breath to stop. In, out, and in again; she’d slowly breathe and count to herself until the involuntary trembling and tears stopped and she no longer felt like she was on the verge of dying. She always felt physically and emotionally exhausted afterwards, which was a good thing. If she acted tired and sleepy, the Straw Hats tended to ask her fewer questions about her wellbeing and simply usher her off to bed.)

It wasn’t perfect, but she knew she could get by. She’d long since learned to time these things carefully. Ishu hadn’t survived this long by just having an emotional breakdown whenever she felt like it, after all, and being with the Straw Hats made it easy to feel happiness in the interim. It felt almost like a daydream.

But inevitably, the day came when Nami revealed over breakfast that the log pose had locked on to its next destination, and Ishu understood that the daydream would now be coming to an end.

“Then all we need now is the ship! I’m looking forward to it,” Luffy cheered, doing a hand-stand pushup with only one hand and clapping his feet together like some sort of deeply confused seal.

“Yeah! Though Franky told us not to come see it until it’s done. He wants to surprise us,” Nami said fondly.

“Do you guys know where following that pose will take you?” Granny Kokoro questioned. She had joined them for the meal. Up until this point, Ishu had been thoroughly engaged in a three-way a wrestling match with Zoro and Chopper on the floor, but her attention was now completely riveted by the conversation.

Nami’s eyes were wide and shining. “No, where is it?” she asked eagerly. “It somehow looks like it’s pointing a little downwards!”

“Of course it is!” Granny Kokoro laughed. “The next island is Fishman Island.”

A pang of unease rippled through the adults in the room as they all glanced uncertainly at Nami, who’d gone pale. (All the adults except for Sanji, that is, who just seemed inappropriately excited about meeting other mermaids that weren’t Granny Kokoro.) “Fishman Island, huh? I have mixed feelings about it,” Nami frowned.

“Yeah, it reminds me of what happened in your village,” Luffy agreed.

“But even though they were fishmen, they were pirates, right?” Zoro pointed out reasonably as Sanji began to rhapsodize about mermaids again, but was quickly reduced to tears after glancing back at their own resident mermaid.

“It’ll be okay, Nami-san,” Ishu added, ignoring the blonde chef as she got up from the floor and climbed right into the woman’s lap. “Fishman Island is where Fisher Tiger is from! He was a fishman pirate too, but he was a hero!”

“Eh?” Luffy asked as Nami looped her arms around Ishu’s waist to keep her from sliding off. “Who’s that?”

Ishu was only too eager to share. “Fisher Tiger was the captain of the Sun Pirates,” she told the group, who were all paying close attention now as they saw she practically had stars in her eyes and spoked with a tone of hushed reverence that they weren’t quite familiar with. “Once, he attacked Mariejois itself, and freed all the slaves they had there in one night. Even the humans! He broke off all their collars and helped them escape, and even took away their slave brands so no one could prove they were really escaped slaves if they were caught again!”

Nami’s arms tightened around her waist.

“That’s so cool!” Luffy enthused.

With her bottle of booze, Granny Kokoro saluted Fisher Tiger’s memory. “He’ll always be missed on Fishman Island,” she declared, before moving the conversation back on track. “It’s a difficult place to get to though.”

“I’m concerned about it being on the seabed,” Robin agreed, tracing a finger around the edge of the elaborate morning cocktail that Sanji had created for her.

“Well, we’ll see once we get there,” came Luffy’s ever-practical response.

From within her coat, Granny Kokoro produced a folded-up newspaper that she dropped onto the table. “That’s not the problem,” she revealed. “Take a look at the front page.”

Nami did so, and Ishu touched a finger to the paper so she could read it as well. Apparently, the Florian Triangle could be an obstacle for her new friends. She frowned in worry for them as they discussed the matter (Disappearances and ghost ships? How interesting!) but they ultimately put it on the backburner. There wasn’t really anything they could do about the danger until they encountered it, no matter how creepy the stories were. Personally, Ishu thought the whole thing sounded a little exciting, but from the way Chopper and Nami nearly crushed her to death in a terrified sandwich-hug in reaction, she wondered if she wasn’t a little warped. At least Luffy seemed to share her interest, for whatever _that _was worth.

“Along with stories about ghost ships, there are… legends of treasure ships, right?” Robin asked innocently when Ishu began looking a bit blue in the face.

Instantly, Nami released her and Chopper from her death grip and was once more flushed with enthusiasm. “All right, let’s find ghost ships!” she and Luffy exclaimed.

Ishu focused on replenishing her oxygen supply as Robin laughed and the others all threw in their two cents.

Their front doors burst open then, revealing Kiwi, Mozu, and Chimney. They were panting and breathless and slid to their knees as soon as they entered, but they were smiling. “What are you guys doing here?” Luffy asked.

Ishu had a pretty good idea, which was confirmed when they revealed that the ship was finally complete. But before they could all rush down to see it, the rest of the Franky Family (minus Franky) arrived, equally as out of breath as the girls, but without matching smiles. Worried, everyone moved to meet them outside on the grass.

“We came to ask you a huge favor,” Zambai revealed as soon as he could speak. “Did you see the wanted posters?”

At that, Ishu’s stomach began twisting in pain all over again. Bad news about wanted posters? She wasn’t sure she wanted to hear this.

“Wanted posters?”

“Straw Hat, the bounty on your head has gotten crazy high! And all the others are wanted now too!” the man gasped.

That got a few mixed reactions. Sanji seemed thrilled about it, Nami horrified, and Chopper somewhere in between.

“Take a look! All eight of you now have bounties on your heads.”

All… eight? Though she’d been somewhat expecting this, Ishu felt all the blood drain from her face nearly instantly and she had to clench her fists _hard _to keep her hands from trembling. And there, sure enough, scattered amongst the other bounty posters that Zambai had thrown so dramatically on the ground she saw her own face looking back at her. Still sporting a black eye and with her hair pulled back into stubby little pigtails in the picture, she was scowling and holding onto what she recognized as Robin's pant leg with one hand while flipping off the camera with the other. And printed in bold letters right beneath that were those fateful words.

“Dragonfly” Serin Ishu, wanted dead or alive. 40 million beri.

Carefully, Ishu bent down to pick the poster up, and it crinkled beneath her fingers. The others were all reacting loudly to their bounties, but Ishu only felt hollow suddenly, and wished she hadn’t left Tulip on her bed back inside. She could’ve used the comfort right about now.

“W-well, we sympathize with you, or well… I’m sure you want to say all sorts of things, but please wait!” Zambai pleaded, then produced a final poster. “Look at this!”

It was Franky’s. He was worth 44 million beri now, it seemed.

That’s when the Franky Family begged the Straw Hats to take their leader with them, and Ishu’s heart warmed when Luffy and the others were so quick to agree. She was glad. She thought Franky would like living with these pirates. Even if he needed to be… persuaded… to come. (She wasn’t crying, dammit.)

The Franky Family then left, and she knew that it was time that she prepared herself to say goodbye. Ishu was in the process of trying to subtly tuck her own bounty poster away in her pocket when it was snatched out of her hands by Luffy, of all people, who completely ignored the way she swiped her arms in the air to try and get it back and gave an appreciative whistle when he saw the number printed on the page. “Way to go, Ishu!” he congratulated her, and burst out laughing. “What a great picture! You’re worth 40 million beri!”

The others startled. “Ishu-chan…” Robin breathed. She looked _terrified. _And quite honestly, most of the others did too, to varying degrees.

Ishu couldn’t stand it.

“Don’t look at me like that!” she demanded of them, scrubbing away her tears with the back of her hand and puffing herself up a little so she could trick herself into feeling brave. (It didn’t work.) “I knew that something like this would happen. I never planned on staying in Water 7,” she admitted. “Once you leave, I’m gonna book passage on another ship going to the New World! It’ll be harder for the Marines to chase me there, and I’ll work really hard. You’ll see! The next time we see each other I’ll be so tall you won’t even recognize me, and I’ll be able to free any slave I find just like you guys did for me!”

Nami and Chopper were openly crying now, and Zoro, Robin, and Sanji all appeared extremely grim and upset. Several of them opened their mouths to say something, but it was Luffy –in typical Luffy fashion— who shattered it all with his next words.

“Why would you say that?” he asked, scratching his head. “You’re coming with us, right?”

Ishu’s brain came to a screeching halt. All the air escaped her lungs in a rush.

“_What_?” his crew all yelled at him.

“She can fly, and make books, and read really fast, and throw lots of pointy birds, and make swords, and do floating puppet shows, and do that cool thing where she knows where everyone is all the time! She should be on the crew,” Luffy explained, as if this were the obvious conclusion to make from this information.

“Don’t just _say _things like that, Luffy, this is serious!” Nami screeched. “We get in fights all the time, she could get really hurt!”

“Well it’s not like the Marines will play gentle with her if they catch up with her here,” Zoro defended the Captain with a roll of his eyes. “At least if she’s with us she’s guaranteed to be with people who’d actually try to protect her.”

“She’s a kid, not a puppy. We’ll be responsible for her if she comes with us, so you can’t just say those things without meaning them,” Sanji snapped. He lit his cigarette and took a long drag. “If she comes with us it’ll be our job to keep her safe no matter who we have to fight, to teach her everything she needs to know, and to make her happy. You might even have to share your meat, Luffy.”

The Captain just nodded seriously. “That’s okay," he said, much to Ishu's shock. (She'd learned very quickly that Luffy _never _shared meat. He didn't even like hearing those two words said in the same sentence.) "She’s our nakama, isn’t she?”

Ishu was having a hard time processing this, even as her heart stuttered at Luffy’s declaration. She _yearned_, but couldn’t find the words to come to her own defense. To beg the others to listen to Luffy and bring her with them out to sea. To assure them that even if she wasn’t very physically strong, that she was good at lots of other things and wouldn’t be a burden to their crew.

“Robin?” Chopper asked when the others looked to him for his opinion, shaking his head and declining to comment.

Accordingly, everyone looked to where Robin was standing just over the reindeer’s shoulder. Her affect was deliberately blank but her arms were crossed defensively over her stomach. “She has nowhere to go and nowhere to go back to,” she said slowly. With weight, as if referencing something completely different. The Straw Hats all stiffened when she said it, and Chopper and Nami let out little gasps. “She’ll be in danger with us, but I agree with Zoro-san. There’s a good possibility that Ishu would be in even _more _danger without us. We saved her life, so we… we should take responsibility.”

Luffy laughed again, delighted. “I knew you’d say yes, Robin!”

“It’s not any of your decisions anyways,” Zoro cut in, cutting an arm through the air in front of him for emphasis. “Why don’t we ask Ishu what _she _wants?”

As one, the Straw Hat Pirates turned the weight of their attention onto Ishu, seemingly in agreement with that point if nothing else.

For a moment, she just stared at them.

Then, “Please let me come with you,” she finally choked out, her vision blurring with tears that she absolutely refused to let fall. (They were a pirate crew worth over 600 million beri! They wouldn’t want a crybaby on board.) The words –previously so hard to find—seemed to suddenly spring forth entirely without her permission, her sentences rough and desperate and only half-baked because all she could think was _please, please, please _and there just wasn’t room for anything else_._“I can take care of myself, mostly. You won’t have to worry about me at all! I won’t take up a lot of space, and I’ll be a good nakama to have on the ship because I already promised to be a good Warrior of Starcrest so I have to keep training to fight better anyways, and I can do lots of helpful things with my devil fruit and tell you lots of things about everything CP9 was investigating and… and Luffy-san doesn’t even have to share the meat if he doesn’t want to because I like vegetables too!”

“Ishu…” Nami murmured, a little stunned by her outburst.

“I don’t want to be alone again!” Ishu insisted, her voice breaking.

Luffy just nodded as if this all made complete sense and was an entirely reasonable justification for bringing her along. (Ishu wasn’t sure how he could tell. _She _didn’t even understand all of her ramblings. But then again, Luffy didn’t operate on the same logic as everyone else did.) “It’s decided then,” he said. “Ishu’s coming with us!”

And miraculously, no one argued. They simply nodded their acceptance of the Captain’s order in unison. It was all she could do not to collapse with the surge of relief that flooded her as it dawned on her then that this was _real_. That these people were officially _hers _now, because they were nakama, and hadn’t the Straw Hats been the ones to teach her the true meaning of that word in the first place? Ishu was one of the few rare people in the world who knew what it was like to lose literally everyone and everything she’d ever known and loved before in a single day. She’d never been given the opportunity to love new people and things until she’d been taken in by this crew, and she swore to herself as she stood pale and speechless in front of them in this moment that she’d never take a single second she was able to spend with them for granted. Ishu knew the value of what she had found here, and it was worth any amount of danger or pain or fear or even death to experience the feeling of _home _again.

“Yes! Ishu’s coming with us!” Chopper cheered, leaping onto her in a tackle hug. Ishu was slightly taller than he was in his preferred chibi form, but of all of them, Chopper’s hugs were amongst the best because his fur was incredibly soft and he always threw himself into them with his whole heart and body. She laughed –it sounded high and disbelieving, even to her ears—and squeezed him back, even as she proved unable to take his weight and they landed on the grass in a heap.

Unaffected by their sudden rowdiness, Zoro just reached down and plucked his two youngest nakama (and Ishu would _never _get over how warm it made her feel to think of herself in that way) off the ground and set them back on their feet. “Let’s pack up, everyone,” he directed the group at large. “We’ve got a ship to board and a cyborg to catch.”

“Yosh!” Luffy enthused, pumping his fist determinedly and rushing back inside. The rest of them followed at more sedate paces, though Ishu was less walking and more bouncing, unable to contain herself. From the fond smiles she received, nobody seemed to mind.

Packing didn’t take long. The only things Ishu owned were the things that had been given to her here –mostly clothes, half of which were emblazoned with the Galley-La brand, and her pirate lunchbox—and she could fit it all into one of Nami’s old backpacks. She left Tulip’s head poking up out of the top of the bag so he’d be able to join her in taking one last look at the island of Water 7. (She knew he was just a toy, but it _was _his home, after all.)

“You guys are prepared for the worst regarding Usopp, aren’t you?” Zoro asked the room at large as they finished. Ishu had moved on to helping Sanji gather his things, since he seemed to be somewhat unresponsive as he just stared at the image on his wanted poster. It _was _pretty ugly, and she felt bad for him since he’d probably been looking forward to getting a bounty the most out of all of them.

Luffy heaved his bag onto his shoulder with a grunt. “Zoro,” he started, but his swordsman cut him off.

“This is how it should be,” Zoro insisted in a low tone.

“Right,” Luffy sighed. “Hey guys, just how long do you have to feel down?” he directed towards Sanji and Chopper.

“Shut up!” Sanji wailed. “Why does mine have to be the only one with a drawing?”

“People don’t usually start with a bounty that large,” Luffy offered, but Sanji wasn’t having any of it.

“Huh? Just how does this picture look like me? Well?”

“You _do _look like that, you know,” Zoro muttered, and Ishu gently patted Sanji’s arm in comfort when the man devolved into incoherency and fell dramatically to the floor, groaning about how this would ruin his reputation with the ladies.

Ishu failed to see how _anyone _would want to subject themselves to Sanji’s over-the-top flirting behavior on a regular basis, regardless of what he looked like, but wisely kept that to herself. Maybe she’d understand once she grew up. (She sincerely doubted it.)

“I was tricked,” Nami lamented over her own photo. “He said he was a local reporter from one of the magazines. At least he managed to get a cute shot of me, but… I’ve got a bounty on my head now.”

“I’m a pirate too! I fought hard, like a man!” Chopper exclaimed indignantly, flailing his free arm around as he held up his bounty poster for emphasis. “I wanna file a complaint about my 50 beri bounty! Ishu’s even younger than me, and she’s got 40 million!”

“Well, there’s always next time,” Luffy assured him.

Robin chuckled and tugged Ishu’s poster free from where it was sticking out of Luffy’s pocket. She smiled once she got a good look at it. “You’re stealthier than I thought, Ishu-chan,” she said casually. “I didn’t even notice you being so rude when you were right next to me.”

Blushing bright red, Ishu coughed uncomfortably into her hand and mumbled something about mean reporters as Robin calmly folded the poster back up and placed it into her own bag. She wasn’t quite sure if this meant Robin approved of the behavior, or if she was in trouble for flipping people off. Perhaps both?

“Straw Hats, what are you doing?” a woman’s voice called from outside.

Excited, Ishu gripped the straps of her backpack tightly and bounded back outside. Mozu, Kiwi, Chimney, and Gonbe were all still there and had been joined by Granny Kokoro. They greeted herself and her crew with wide smiles.

“Let’s hurry, they’re waiting for you!” they were prompted.

“Sorry!” Luffy said affably, before reminding them all not to forget anything since they’d be setting sail as soon as they convinced Franky to come with them.

Ishu tuned out the general chaos as they gathered stragglers and squished Chimney into a tight hug. “I’ll miss you!” she told her honestly. Chimney was kind of weird; but Ishu was too, and the younger girl was nice and fun and had been a good friend to her even if Ishu had been a bit of an emotional wreck the whole time they knew each other. “I’m going with the Straw Hats now, but I’ll come back to visit one day.”

“Hey wait, you guys are already leaving?” Chimney whined, eyes shimmering and returning Ishu’s hug with one arm while she reached out and made a grabby hand at Nami with the other.

Warmly, Nami held the little blonde’s hand briefly in both of hers. “Chimney, Gonbe, thanks for everything,” she said. Both she and Ishu let go then, and Chimney looked like she might cry for a moment before Granny Kokoro laid a comforting hand on top of her head. She watched them go sadly as they said their goodbyes, but Ishu didn’t feel too bad as she walked away side by side with her nakama. Chimney had Gonbe and her Grandma and everyone at Galley-La looking out for her. She’d miss her, but she’d be safe and happy here, and it was like Zoro had said the day of the pool party.

They wouldn’t leave a friend behind without a promise to come back and visit. Just because they were apart for the moment, didn’t mean that they didn’t care.

When they arrived at the scrap heap island, Franky wasn’t there. According to Iceberg, he’d left so that he wouldn’t be tempted to say yes when they asked him to come with them. (Franky was a stupid and ridiculous person, but Ishu couldn’t blame him for trying to do what he thought was the right thing at the price of his own happiness. Still, she wasn’t going to let him do it, because she was a _pirate _now and her nakama –Franky included, because Luffy had said so and he was the Captain—were her treasures.) Iceberg unveiled their ship with a flourish in his absence.

It was incredible. Ishu practically had stars in her eyes as she looked up at what would soon be her new home. The ship was brightly colored, and had grass and trees on the deck and a lion as a figurehead! It was so _cool_! They wasted no time on boarding to check it out, and Ishu flew right on top of the crows’ nest, hanging upside-down from the roof for a moment so she could press her nose against the glass to look inside before dropping lightly back down to the main deck to investigate further. There was a huge kitchen and galley that had Sanji making a face he usually reserved for women, and a big room with walls made out of fish tanks, and a big bathroom with a big tub, and an infirmary, and a _library_. There weren’t very many books already on board, but Ishu nearly swooned when she saw all the empty shelves and called excitedly for Robin.

“Look! Look! We can put all your books here, and there’s room for me to make more!” Ishu cheered as she dragged the woman in.

Robin gasped as she entered the room, and smiled widely. “We can make quite the collection. Then everyone can find something to read without having to go digging through storage.”

“En!”

After dropping off their bags in the women’s quarters, they walked back onto the deck together, only to find the rest of the crew gathered as Luffy explained his plan to force Franky onto their crew by holding the man’s speedo hostage. An idea suggested to them by the rest of the Franky Family.

Ishu laughed so hard at that she felt tears forming in the corners of her eyes. “Let me help,” she begged. “If I fly away with it he’ll never catch me!”

“You’ll do no such thing,” Robin cut in and told her firmly, completely ignoring how Ishu and Luffy pouted at her.

“You’re all idiots. Us girls are staying here,” Nami agreed. But she smiled mischievously at them anyways. “Good luck, and bring him back!”

“Hai, Nami-swaaaan!” Sanji squealed, and practically fluttered off the deck of the ship, pulling the others behind him so they could go after Franky.

Ishu’s pout grew even deeper. “I wanted to go,” she whined, directing pleading eyes up at Robin, who held firm.

“You’re not allowed to go stealing men’s speedos until you’re thirty,” she said dryly, crossing her arms. Nami giggled at the pair of them from behind her hand, but Robin seemingly refused to acknowledge her.

“What? But Chopper’s little too and he’s helping! And _you’re _not even thirty!”

Robin just gave her a Look, and Ishu folded nearly instantly. “Fine, I’ll stay here,” she sighed. She wasn’t actually that upset about it anyways, and she was entirely too happy to be here to seriously contemplate actually disobeying Robin regardless. If it had been any of the others, she might have. (Half of them were more irresponsible than she was anyways, and Ishu was a literal child!) But Robin… something inside of her cringed away from the idea of disobeying Robin.

“Cheer up, Imouto,” Nami chirped, circling to stand on Ishu’s other side and tickling her until her exaggerated sad face dissolved into laughter. “If I know the boys, they’ll bring the show to us!”

She wasn’t wrong. The sound of distant explosions reached them within minutes. Ishu had perched herself on top of the main sail to get a better view and cheerfully called out updates to her companions back on deck whenever she spotted a building collapse. A cannon blast sounded, and then Franky was flying through the air in an ungraceful arc only to land head-first just beside the ship, sprawled out bare for the entire world to see.

The audience of horrified shipwrights didn’t seem to know what to do with either the sudden violence nor the sudden graphic nudity. Though Chimney seemed to think it was hilarious.

Ishu dropped back down to the deck and considered the sight in front of her with her head cocked slightly to the head in curiosity. “I’d wondered if he still had those, considering the front half of him is a cyborg,” she commented as she squished herself between Robin and Nami.

Nami made a high pitched noise in the back of her throat but wasn’t able to respond before Luffy and Chopper crashed down onto the deck of the ship in front of them, and Luffy leaped onto the railing to stand proudly with Franky’s speedo held aloft in his hand like a victory flag.

“Franky! Thanks for the ship!” their Captain cried out as Franky finally righted himself and stood. “It’s the best! We’ll take good care of it!”

Franky smiled amicably. “Yeah, I wish you a safe journey!” he replied.

“If you want me to give this swimsuit back, then join us!”

Gritting his teeth, Franky was silent for a few moments, clearly struggling with his answer. “Don’t be silly,” he finally bit out. “You think you can make me join you just by stealing my swimsuit?” With a burst of energy, he leaped on top of a pile of rotting wood and struck a pose that left absolutely no part of him to the imagination. “Nothing should phase men! A man should be resourceful, even with only the skin on his back. He should be like a lion that stands against the waves!”

Onlookers shrieked in horror. Nami clapped a shielding hand over Ishu’s eyes and didn’t remove it, despite her squirming.

“I underestimated him!” Luffy gasped, awestruck. “He’s a man among men!”

Nami slapped him with her free hand. “He’s just a total perv!” she snapped.

“If it’s okay to get rough with him, I can help you,” Robin offered with a small smile, seemingly unphased.

This gave Luffy pause. “Come to think of it, Ice-pops did say we had no choice but to take him by force,” he mused.

“But how?” Nami questioned, and finally released Ishu once Robin stepped forwards and assumed her hana-hana pose in answer. Gleefully, Ishu leaned over the railing to get a better look at what Robin was going to do and nearly toppled over the edge as she watched the woman use her powers to take a firm hold on Franky’s man bits and _squeeze._

Nami, Luffy, and Chopper all squealed out protests as Franky cried out in pain and collapsed face-first to the ground, and Ishu could only watch this all play out with wide eyes and a dropped jaw. _Hardcore._

“Oi, Robin, I want him to still be a man when he joins us!” Luffy yelled. “Don’t tear them off!”

“If you’re telling us, pirates, to give up on the treasure right in front of us, we can’t back off unless you give us a good reason,” Robin explained to Franky pleasantly.

There was a lot of wailing and crying and protests from Franky after that, as Iceberg and his friends showed up and begged him to leave so that he could be happy despite his insistence of wanting to stay on Water 7 and claims that he wasn’t a shipwright anymore. Though Ishu soon realized that she no longer sensed Robin’s energy coming from Franky’s direction, and the snot and tears were his and his alone at this point. (She laughed when she figured it out, and Robin gave her a wink even as Chopper screeched at her that she was a monster for enjoying a man’s pain like that.) Ishu couldn’t blame Franky too much though. It was actually really touching, to see how much and how deeply he was loved by so many. And it was pretty funny to watch him try to blame Robin for how hard he was crying.

“Hey, Robin!” Luffy protested once again as Franky’s agony seemed to reach critical levels, though he startled once he noticed that Robin had given up her pose and instead stood leaned up against the railing, her arm draped around Ishu’s shoulders as she grinned up at the woman. “H-huh? You aren’t doing anything?”

Robin laughed lightly. “I only did it once, the very first time,” she revealed. “How sly of him, to pretend that he’s crying out in pain.”

“He’ll be okay,” Ishu assured her Captain. “He’s just happy and sad at the same time.”

Her crew all smiled at her.

It seemed that things had gone on too long however, and Ishu started when she suddenly felt a tickle of danger in the back of her mind. “Captain-san,” she warned, pulling out of Robin’s hold and pointing over the side of the ship. “There’s a ship coming this way from around the other side of the island. It feels like your grandpa!”

“_What_?” Luffy yelped, his hair practically standing on end.

Sanji and Zoro chose that moment to appear, running onto the ship from the city and yelling breathlessly about how Marines were going to attack them.

“Time to go,” Luffy decided. Ishu wholeheartedly agreed, glad that they’d had the foresight to have already loaded all of their belongings on board. Luffy threw Franky back his speedo. “Board my ship,” he commanded.

This time, Franky agreed. Chopper and Ishu cheered wildly, jumping up and down and hugging each other as the others all smiled, and he boarded with his duffel bag clasped in one hand and his swimsuit clasped in the other.

“Set sail!” Luffy finally commanded, and his crew sprang into action under Nami’s expert directions. (Franky even managed to get dressed!) Ishu didn’t really know enough about sailing to be of much use here when time was of the essence, so she made sure to keep out of the way as she clung to the railing of the ship and scanned back over the shore as the wind caught the sails and they began to pull away.

Usopp hadn’t come.

Nami and Chopper were upset at Luffy, but Ishu couldn’t be when she saw how pained he was with having to leave Usopp behind. She was upset too, and she didn’t even know the man nearly as well as she did the others. He’d been kind to her though, and had made her smile, and his absence was clearly a gaping wound to those of them who’d sailed with him before. They’d waited and _hoped _for him to come back; and now that he hadn’t, Ishu was actually a little angry on their behalves because just yesterday, she would have given _anything _to be a part of this crew. Yet Usopp had just… thrown them all away. And there wasn’t any more time to wait.

“They’re here!” Ishu cried out in warning. Moments later, the first few cannon balls splashed down frighteningly close into the ocean beside them, rocking the ship violently. Vice Admiral Garp had arrived.

“Hey Luffy, can you hear me?” the man bellowed over a megaphone from the deck of his own ship. (Ishu wondered whose bright idea it was to give him _that. _He certainly didn’t need it.) “This is grandpa! If you can hear me, say something!”

“Hey grandpa, what are you doing?” Luffy yelled back angrily. “You said you weren’t gonna capture us here!”

“Well the thing is, a lot has happened since then. Sorry, but I’m going send you to the bottom of the sea!”

“WHAT.”

“I’m not doing this as an apology or anything, but I’m gonna fight you and your crew all by myself!”

Ishu had never seen anyone throw a cannonball with their bare hands before. To more deadly effect than an actual cannon could, even! Luffy’s grandpa was very impressive, she mused to herself as the entire ship was blasted sideways across the water when the projectile impacted mere feet away and she was sent tumbling across the deck. Completely terrifying, but still impressive.

“We have no choice!” Nami declared. “We’re getting out of here now, or our new ship will be blasted to bits!”

“Full speed ahead,” Luffy agreed. “We’ll take care of the cannonballs.”

“Got it!”

So of _course _this was when Usopp decided to finally show up. Despite her irritation at his timing, Ishu was a little relieved. He was here. Good. She wouldn’t have wanted to face the painful absence in the crew that he’d left. They didn’t have much time to wait for that apology though, so she hoped that he’d get to it quickly. She’d do what she could to help until then.

The last time she’d been on a ship under fire, Ishu had been freed from her sea prism collar mere minutes before and was still terribly weak from the deplorable conditions she’d been kept in for months until that point. It would take her weeks more to recover completely, she knew, but she was well-fed and well-rested now and felt ready to take on a cannonball or two at her friends’ sides.

Zoro was a swordsman. He sliced the projectiles long before they could ever reach him. Sanji was a cook, but he was really good at kicking things and protected their ship that way. Luffy was a rubber man of course, and let them bounce off his body and back out over the water, and Franky used his absurd amounts of weaponized cyborg body parts to blast the cannonballs out of the sky. Ishu was none of those things, but she _was _the last living pupil of the Island Guard of Starcrest. A Warrior of Starcrest and a practitioner of the art. When the first cannonball slipped past her crewmates and flew her way, she wasn’t frightened. Instead, she took a meditative breath and called upon the strength she knew she had inside her before leaping forwards. When the cold steel met her hands it sent her feet skidding back across the deck, but she held her stance even though the impact smarted something fierce, and she batted the projectile away from herself and the ship before it could do any real harm.

Usopp was shouting at them from the shore, saying all sorts of ridiculous and increasingly desperate things. None of them were an apology though, so they just grimly kept fighting, and waiting; but even as Ishu was distracted by leaping to deflect more cannonballs, she wondered for how much longer they could afford to do so.

Thankfully, they didn’t have to wait too much longer.

“I’m sorry!” Usopp finally screamed after them. “I’m sorry for being bullheaded! I was wrong!” If the entire crew had been holding their breath, this was the moment when they could finally exhale. “I know I’m being pathetic. I know I said I was leaving the gang. But… is there any chance that I can take it back? Please let me stay with you! Let me join you guys one last time!”

And Luffy did. He brought Usopp home.

“You guys are so lame!” Nami sobbed as Luffy yanked Usopp onto the ship with one stretchy arm.

Both men tumbled onto the deck and tears started falling left and right; but Usopp was here now, and so was Franky, and so was _Ishu_. And as Franky showed off the Coup de Burst feature of the newly-named Thousand Sunny and they escaped into the sky… Ishu was almost deliriously happy. The wind blasted her hair back from her face and she would’ve been blown completely overboard if she hadn’t quickly attached herself to the main mast with a few paper streamers, but she couldn’t contain the delighted laughter that bubbled up from inside her even as Water 7 vanished on the horizon behind them.

And then it was over. Their faces still flushed with post-fight adrenaline, the crew all drifted together to stand on the grass deck of the Thousand Sunny, congratulating each other and leaning up against each other in relief. Basking in the fact that they were all together and safe now and assuring Chopper that his services weren’t required at the moment. It was a heady feeling. She was with _nakama _now, and even if she and Franky were the newest members of the crew, none of the other Straw Hats looked at them with any less warmth than they did the others. Zoro even congratulated her on doing so well with the cannons! (Ishu veritably copied Chopper’s compliment-dance, flattered by the recognition from someone with such brute strength.)

Then Luffy complained of being hungry, and Sanji yelled at him (but led the way into the new kitchen anyways) and before long, they’d all seated themselves around the new table. The air was thick with smiles and laughter. It was boisterous and lively and _warm… _and everything Ishu could’ve ever wanted.

“Ne, Robin,” Ishu asked in as innocent a voice as she could muster in a lull in conversation, the effect rather ruined by the mischievous tilt of her mouth. “You said I’m not allowed to steal men’s swimsuits until I’m thirty. How old do I have to be to grab their kintama?”

The expression on Robin’s face in response to her question –some obscure combination of shock, reluctant amusement, and utter horror—was completely priceless and sent the entire crew into helpless fits of laughter at her expense. Ishu laughed right alongside them, not even bothering to dodge when Franky grabbed her up and gave her a vicious noogie for even _suggesting _such brutality on his ship. But then Robin saved her, and she was laughing too as she ran behind the serving counter and quickly handed her off to Sanji, then took off running while Franky followed her, shaking his fist and threatening her with a noogie too since he owed her some revenge from earlier, and… Ishu couldn’t imagine anything more perfect than this moment right here.

Her old family was gone forever, and it was time for her to make a new one now. She thought she’d made a pretty good start.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fun fact: I don't know if anyone has seen the movie "Kubo and the Two Strings", but the thing Ishu does with making little origami shows with Usopp is like what Kubo does, except with her devil fruit powers instead of music. I was actually watching that movie when I thought up this story, so that little trick was actually the entire inspiration!

**Author's Note:**

> Just a little self-indulgence for my need for found families, emotional hurt/comfort, and heartwarming fluff. Long chapters, infrequent updates.


End file.
